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> Prime Runner vs. Gutter Runner, What style do you prefer?
Which style of play do you prefer the most?
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DV8
post Nov 8 2006, 11:26 AM
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There are many different ways you can play your game. The two largest distincting lines are mana- vs cyberpunk and prime- vs gutterrunners. I'm getting increasingly frustrated by my own dissociation with most others on this board regarding game-style. Perhaps I don't get it. Perhaps I'm missing something. Or perhaps I'm merely dissociated from a vocal minority.

I just want to be well-liked! ;) (And know how you guys do it.)
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Ophis
post Nov 8 2006, 11:30 AM
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I mix and match, Mostly my campaigns run for a long time so players end up Prime, mana/cyber depends on my mood for each campaign and or session.
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Sicarius
post Nov 8 2006, 11:45 AM
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i picked gutter runner/cyber. because that's how my players usually start. They may work their way up to prime runner status, if they last that long. picking Cyber over Mana punk isn't necessarily my preference so much as my players. They often go with teams without any mages or even adepts. they just prefer the feel of cyber i guess. so because they prefer the mundane, the campaign focuses that way, with only the occasional super villian being awakened.
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Ryu
post Nov 8 2006, 12:22 PM
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I voted gutter runner/manapunk.

I dislike prime runner campaigns due to the amount of planning necessary. Easier jobs make for more actual roleplaying. Might be my group though.

I voted manapunk despite not demanding a team mage - neither as player nor as GM. There is no emphasis on magic, but it is definitly present.


Care to elaborate your dissonance? What are you missing?
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Dog
post Nov 8 2006, 01:26 PM
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I prefer to play prime runners, probably because I see too much gritty street-life in the real world already. But most of my fellow-players right now prefer gutterpunk, so I accomodate them. Definitely more mana-based, since we generally aren't techno-savvy types.
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Kagetenshi
post Nov 8 2006, 01:32 PM
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Gutterprime.

(Powerful, capable runners without arbitrary resources at their disposal.)

~J
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DragginSPADE
post Nov 8 2006, 04:09 PM
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I voted Gutter Manapunk. My preferred play style is long campaigns, where fairly inexperienced starting characters try to claw their way to the top. And Manapunk since most campaigns I've been in have been fairly heavy on the mojo.

EDIT: Hmm, I'm a moving target now, apparently. I take it that's some kind of reference to how many posts I've made?
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fistandantilus4....
post Nov 8 2006, 05:36 PM
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QUOTE (DragginSPADE)
My preferred play style is long campaigns, where fairly inexperienced starting characters try to claw their way to the top.


THat
QUOTE
Powerful, capable runners without arbitrary resources at their disposal


That


QUOTE
I mix and match, Mostly my campaigns run for a long time so players end up Prime, mana/cyber depends on my mood for each campaign and or session.

And that

QUOTE
EDIT: Hmm, I'm a moving target now, apparently.  I take it that's some kind of reference to how many posts I've made?

Yep :)
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Grinder
post Nov 8 2006, 06:05 PM
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Second that. :)
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Dawnshadow
post Nov 8 2006, 07:50 PM
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Prime runner.

Cyber or Mana. I've played both. Run into the disadvantages of both too.
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Draconis
post Nov 8 2006, 08:47 PM
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Gutterprime Cybermanapunk.
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Kyoto Kid
post Nov 8 2006, 09:11 PM
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...Yeah, with us it's usually Mix & Match too, but occasionally with a twist, at least in some of the characters I've ran. These would include an adventure minded (& rather bored with daily life) heiress, a free lance reporter, a "retired" military doctor, a former baseball player, a professional boxer, and a kid genius musician.
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Glyph
post Nov 9 2006, 02:06 AM
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I like prime runners (not the best of the best, but seasoned pros), although I prefer campaigns that also keep a gritty feel. Too many people making a runner will make someone with no real reason to run the shadows - they need to be blacklisted from their old profession, addicted to adrenaline, driven by ideals of social justice, something! The problem with low-powered characters is that typically, they don't have as wide a range of possible enemies or missions to do, and they often have a dreary sameness due to everyone getting the "essential" skills and not having much left to do anything else with.

I guess I am between the two extremes, as I don't usually like playing some loser picking the back lock of Bob's Bar & Grill, but I don't like playing complicated infiltration scenarios that take forever to plan out, either. I like runners who have been doing this for awhile, who aren't prime runners yet, but could be eventually.
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Snow_Fox
post Nov 9 2006, 02:57 AM
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QUOTE (Ophis)
I mix and match, Mostly my campaigns run for a long time so players end up Prime, mana/cyber depends on my mood for each campaign and or session.

That's about right, a mix of cyber and manna but I said mana because I favor spell slingers.

We also prefer prime runners. this is the top flight playing with the big boys. The James Bond/Dr Who/Leathal Weapon deals.
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emo samurai
post Nov 9 2006, 03:14 AM
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I'm all about magical warfare.
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Ryu
post Nov 9 2006, 09:30 AM
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QUOTE (Glyph)
The problem with low-powered characters is that typically, they don't have as wide a range of possible enemies or missions to do, and they often have a dreary sameness due to everyone getting the "essential" skills and not having much left to do anything else with.


The difference between gutter runners and prime runners is not really in the numbers, but in the campaign. My runners are quite capable, they are certainly stronger than gangers, even the non-combat types. What makes them gutter runners is that they are neither equipped nor even hired for runs upon AzTech HQ. They have a limited reputation in the corp world (They are currently in contact with only one corp Johnson, having worked up their way from mafia jobs. They worked twice for the New Templars, once against AzTech interests). The range of enemies and friends is very broad.

What makes them gutter runners is the quality of their connections and the amount of money available for toys. And the selection of real targets they can beat. When I started playing SR, our usual strategy was half the samurai waiting for the FRT outside. Those days are gone.
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DV8
post Nov 9 2006, 02:50 PM
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QUOTE (Ryu)
Care to elaborate your dissonance? What are you missing?

Well, let me get to that in a bit. First, let me show, for those that haven't voted, or didn't bother to look, what the results were so far;

CODE
Prime Runner / Manapunk            [ 7 ] [22.58%]
Prime Runner / Cyberpunk           [ 4 ] [12.90%]
Gutter Runner / Manapunk           [ 3 ] [ 9.68%]
Gutter Runner / Cyberpunk          [ 9 ] [29.03%]
Mix and match (elaborate, please). [ 8 ] [25.81%]


Now, personally, I enjoy long campaigns, with several plots, seemingly dissociated events, and pretty heavy on the character vs character and character vs npc interaction. (Sounds a bit pompous, and I apologise for that. I'm not an elitist, to each his own.) This is my flavour of game-play, and I know that lots of people work with pre-made characters, or play in very tactical games, or enjoy playing top-end runners, and while these people might not be the majority, they are perhaps a very vocal minority, which gave me the impression that I was the only one to play a radically different game than some.

We see that manapunk is hot among people who play a high-end game, while cyberpunk is hot among those who play a low-end game. Personally, I think that magic is poorly implemented. No, let me rephrase that; I think the way magic is regarded in canon Shadowrun is very plastic, very overdone, and without any sense of mysticism left. There are university and research-groups that are bordering on the clinical and dispassionate, while I always saw magic as anything but.

In another thread people were asked what their favourite piece of Shadowrun-art was, and someone mentioned one of Timothy Bradstreet's works, of a streetmage painting an arcane circle in an alley. When I saw this picture, years ago, something clicked within me, and I realised I wouldn't want magic to be widespread, or well-known, or well-researched, or well-trusted, or well-documented...I wanted it mystical. This streetmage, squatting down and painting that cirlce with such nonchalant arrogance showed me that he had power that I would never comprehend, and something that he couldn't put into words I'd understand, because I'm a sleeper.

Just like it irks me that in canon Shadowrun every shadowrunner has a shoe-endorsement and that there are shadowrunner television shows, and the simple notion that "shadowrun" is a commonly understood phrase in 2060, just so does it irk me to think that everyone could be textbook-knowledgable about magic. And manapunk Shadowrun encourages that. So I wouldn't call myself a manapunk-player, but I can't say that it's pure cyberpunk either, but it does lean in that direction. I think magic, in its mystical and near-mythical form can most assuredly be incorporated in the grittiness of cyberpunk, just like it incorporated brilliantly in the interbellum-period television-show Carnivāle.

Then we get to the other question, Prime vs Gutter? Both have its appeal, but when you play the prime runner story, you - or at least, I - get the urge to start playing an unrealistic game. Let's face it, most of us can't fathom what it must be like to operate on the level of a prime runner. We can't think that high. We can't possibly imagine the intricacies and intrigue at that level. But gutter-reality, while still hard, is easier for us to imagine, because everything that happens in a gutter-punk game is founded on simple human urges like survival. Prime-punk games are founded on complex human urges; power. As soon as I, as a GM, cross the boundary where my players are no longer playing for survival but for power, it becomes such an entirely different ball-game, and I often look back on campaigns that have gone past and chuckle at how unrealistic they became. So I tend to stay on the gutter side of the equation, some longer living players pulling themselves out of the slums. But as soon as they start to earn real cred, real rep, then it becomes so incredibly complicated.

The most important and difficult thing you need to think about when a runner becomes of a certain grade is that he's going to start attracting attention. Some attention is wanted (potential employers, potential business associates), but most of the attention is going to come from exposure and there's no amount of fake SINs you can purchase that you're going to keep the heat off your back. Pretty soon a runner will be more busy covering his tracks then he is busy grafting. Besides that, nobody would want to work with a runner that's too well known, it'll be impossible to not get caught with someone as high profile (relatively speaking) as that.

A runner will have to start maintaining a few fake IDs. He'll have to start renting several apartments, and making sure that they are run like regular households. They'll have to recieve grocery-deliveries, and have an particular energy consumption, because an empty apartment with no movement surrounding it is going to draw suspicion. A runner could pay a neighbour off and get them to make all the daily purchases, and make sure the mail is picked up and the bills are paid, but that would mean involving yet another person in your little scam...and nobody wants that.

Anyway, I can go on ranting and raving like that for a while, waxing psuedo-intellectually about the intricacies of maintaining multiple identities in a high information-density, totalitarian and paranoid state, but nobody is waiting for that. The bottom line is that I want my games to be realistic. Whether it's because I don't think that in 50 years people can start to comprehend the depth of magic, and therefore it should still be considered too complex for the normal man to comprehend (sort of like quantum- or string-theory nowadays), or the depth of trouble one can get into a shadowrunner if too many people know your name.
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Kyoto Kid
post Nov 9 2006, 06:03 PM
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...DV8

Too bad you do not live in Portland. I love Writing up and running long involved campaigns and am looking for players to participate in a second run through of my Rhapsody Arc (SR3)
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Fortune
post Nov 9 2006, 09:30 PM
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I just don't see how it's more realistic to have 'long campaigns with several plots', and yet still keep the gutter feel all the way through. Things tend to chaange and grow, either because of character development or their eventual actions.
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Grinder
post Nov 9 2006, 10:17 PM
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Yeah, being the powerless pawn who has no clue what's really happening can't be much fun over the course of a whole long campaign.
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FlakJacket
post Nov 10 2006, 12:35 AM
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Voted Gutter Runner/Cyberpunk since that best matches my favoured gameworld, although I probably fall more into Guter Mana/Cyberpunk since I like something inbetween the two. Well my favourite PC types are adepts, followed shortly after by deckers. :)

QUOTE (DV8)
Just like it irks me that in canon Shadowrun every shadowrunner has a shoe-endorsement and that there are shadowrunner television shows, and the simple notion that "shadowrun" is a commonly understood phrase in 2060, just so does it irk me to think that everyone could be textbook-knowledgable about magic.

Gods, always with the show endorsements with you isn't it? ;)

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Tziluthi
post Nov 10 2006, 01:24 AM
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QUOTE (DV8)
In another thread people were asked what their favourite piece of Shadowrun-art was, and someone mentioned one of Timothy Bradstreet's works, of a streetmage painting an arcane circle in an alley. When I saw this picture, years ago, something clicked within me, and I realised I wouldn't want magic to be widespread, or well-known, or well-researched, or well-trusted, or well-documented...I wanted it mystical. This streetmage, squatting down and painting that cirlce with such nonchalant arrogance showed me that he had power that I would never comprehend, and something that he couldn't put into words I'd understand, because I'm a sleeper.

You read the writing on the paint can, right? Otherwise I completely agree with you. Magic too well understood and too widespread can effectively ruin the cyberpunk setting.
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Fortune
post Nov 10 2006, 01:29 AM
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I like the writing on the can. I like the fact that all the various small, and sometimes seemingly incongruous individual elements combine to make the whole a more compelling image.
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eidolon
post Nov 10 2006, 01:35 AM
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You're not alone at all DV8. Not alone at all.
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adamu
post Nov 10 2006, 02:56 AM
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I wrote mix and match, and it says to elaborate, so...

I love the gutter runner thing, the claw your way up through adversity angle, the "getting shot at or seeing magic is still scary" thing. But I think that diligent play of a character for a period of several years should be rewarded by a slow march toward prime runnerdom - I despise the shift SR took from 3rd edition, where they continued to write novels about prime runners and present giant, world-spanning threats, but the rules and the tone of the designers basically spit on anyone more powerful than a ganger as an evil powergamer.

I prefer manapunk - otherwise I would play Cyberpunk instead of Shadowrun. That said, I think magic should be kept rare enough in SR to be remarkable and scary when it does come up.
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