Grit, Adding more grit into Shadowrun Options

[VagabondStar]

"Oh, the (meta)Humanity!"

[Grinder]

Take a look in the newspaper and see what's going on in the world. Take the concept, make it doubly intense, and introduce that.

Agreed. Just read reports from South Africa and Darfur for one week, do a bit of research on the civil war in Liberia, Kongo and spice that with a book about Ruanda and you'll get many ideas how to make your SR more gritty.

[Sir_Psycho]

That's Congo and Rwanda.

Also, if the barrens are anything like Congo, there's going to be a lot of sex, and not a lot of protection going on. A travel piece I read mentioned that people seem to fuck a lot in the Congo, because life is cheap and you never know when you're going to die.

It also included a story about when the tourist witnessed a group of boys from a town beat an outcast pygmy boy within an inch of his life and then lynch him. The pygmy boy was outcast from his tribe because mental retardation and deformity is viewed badly in their society, and the villages won't take him in, so he lives off the garbage outside their villages. He approached the journalist and a german tourist he was sitting with and dropped a huge branch on his head. When the german woke up, he had no idea what had happened, and there was a boy swinging from a tree, slowly dying.

If you wonder why a travel guide would talk about the Congo, it was the Vice guide to travel, and they covered a whole lot of lovely spots such as Chernobyl, Russia and Sofia, Bulgaria, not to mention a particular market in the middle east that makes a thousand firearms a day, where a journalist once bought a nuclear warhead, just to prove that he could. Journalists are not allowed there any more.

The sixth world isn't that fucked up.

[NightmareX]

That looks (aside from the nukes) pretty much like the Barrens (Redmond in particular) in my games. Perhaps a tad worse than that actually. Sure the volume of firearms traffic isn't nearly that high and the quality of said arms are low, but pretty much spot on.

Add in 3.5 tons of pollution and garbage per square foot, lots of race based violence, sex on demand (in one way or another), and the absolute impossibility of the majority of the residents ever knowing anything better (or living to see their 30th birthday in many cases), and there ya go.

That's not even touching the paranormal threats - ghouls, devil rats, para-mutt packs of all flavors, the occasional Infected, and worst of all toxic magicians that prey on their fellow Barrens dwellers. Cause really, coming up in that environment, the majority of Barrens magicians would eventually become some flavor of toxic IMO.

And the C and D zones aren't much better (think Robocop).

So, not that fucked up? Nah - it's plenty worse.

[Grinder]

That's Congo and Rwanda.

Sorry, used the german names for it.

[KCKitsune]

You know that if it really was THAT bad then there would be riots and the Megas would have to do SOMETHING otherwise the government would step in and they would increase their power base and that would spell the doom of the Megas. Face it, Shadowrun is bad, but nowhere as bad as everybody here is portraying because humans can only take so much before they will become uncontrolled. That would decrease the profit margin for the Megas as they need people to BUY stuff to make money. No money, no profit... no Megas! Totally unacceptable to them.

Places like Congo and Rwanda IRL don't do this because they don't have the weapons and equipment to do so.

[NightmareX]

You know that if it really was THAT bad then there would be riots and the Megas would have to do SOMETHING otherwise the government would step in and they would increase their power base and that would spell the doom of the Megas. Face it, Shadowrun is bad, but nowhere as bad as everybody here is portraying because humans can only take so much before they will become uncontrolled.

Well, first off, no one cares about the Barrens areas so long as they're contained - this is a long understood part of SR. Further, people in such hellholes are uncontrolled - no rules or restrictions beyond what Darwin and the gangs make, no niceties, and no hope. Morality is so much a thing of the past that most Barrens folk wouldn't know what the word means. Sure, they can riot and likely do all they want, but all the rest of the world sees is street scum looting and burning buildings, and the "heroic" Lone Star officers putting them down - and that's only if the rioting fringes on better districts of town. The majority of wage slaves are simply too wrapped up in their own cozy lives to care about street scum.

As for the government stepping in - why? The megas essentially control the governments through financial means and the megas don't care about Barrens folk because Barrens folk don't have money and don't hurt business so long as they are contained. Barrens folk are SINless - in the government's eyes they don't exist. So why waste resources trying (and failing) to improve the lot of people that can't even vote in order to help you get elected? "Uptown" folk aren't going to riot and risk loosing everything they have over nameless street trash. It's just that simple.

Places like Congo and Rwanda IRL don't do this because they don't have the weapons and equipment to do so.

The US, Britain, and plenty of other countries do. Why then are they not involved, "cleaning up" the Congo, Rwanda, Darfur, etc etc etc? The reason they don't is the same reason the megas and governments don't make things better in the Barrens - because those areas are out of sight, out of mind so to speak, and no one with the capability to cares enough to do anything.

[Sir_Psycho]

The barrens are uncontrolled. Why do you think the cops don't go there? They fence it off and point big guns at it in case of any signs of trouble. It's mentioned in LA. The higher rated californian areas bordering the barrens put up big walls and put automated guns on top.

But when you haven't eaten in three days, you live in a pile of garbage and a devil rat has left a big infected hole in your leg, you're not going to be starting war with the powers. You're frantic, animalistic. If you've got a gun you use it on your fellow man, not the untouchables up in the crystal castles that you've never even seen.

On the other hand, the barrens make a great place to recruit tough, violent mooks and even runners. It's a darwinistic breeding ground for killers and revolutionaries alike. And growing up there makes a great background for an anti-establishment runner.

[Rasumichin]

You know that if it really was THAT bad then there would be riots and the Megas would have to do SOMETHING otherwise the government would step in and they would increase their power base and that would spell the doom of the Megas.

Having to struggle for your survival actually decreases the chance of revolution to occur, as people are too busy ensuring that they stay alive to do something to change their situation.

Places like Congo and Rwanda IRL don't do this because they don't have the weapons and equipment to do so.

Places like Congo, Rwanda and most of the rest of western Africa work like this because maintaining a constant state of low-intensity warfare is the base of operations for the local powers-that-be.
The warlords can use it to exploit natural ressources they otherwise wouldn't have access to, the government of the day profits from it because it is an excuse to stay in power (as long as the civil war is going on, elections will be postponed) and are otherwise no different than the warlords, the arms dealers can ship in steady supplies in exchange for the ressources.
Everybody in power profits from it.
Most people who have anything to offer to the local rulers look for a way to get their slice of the cake- by joining the army or one of the rebel groups or by working for the government to get rich on bribes.
No one who could do something about it is interested in ending the civil wars, building up a functional government or stop selling out the natural ressources there.

Many of those places have in common that there was never a stable, institutionalized government to begin with, power instead relying on patrimonial or charismatic rule.
This leads to the fact that it is very easy to destabilize the political system, decreasing the cost of warfare.
Other key factors in the establishment of economies of civil war are a high percentage of uneducated young men (as this also decreases costs for the warlords, giving them a steady base of recruiting cheap personell for their armies), the opportunity to make money in ways that are more easy to pull off if central authority has collapsed (such as kidnapping industry, stealing of ressources, narcotics production, slave trade and so on) and easy access to military weapons, private military companies and the like.

If the possible gains of starting a civil war outweigh the potential cost of doing so, outbreak of a civil war economy is extremely likely.
As long as the ratio between costs and gains stays the same, those profiting from the situation will do anything to keep the war going.

Note that this is a qualitatively fundamentally different type of warfare than traditional military engagement.
War is, in western Africa as well as in central-American narco states, Afghanistan and presumably Iraq as soon as America retreats, no longer a means to a political end in a clausewitzian sense, where achievement of the political goal that was the reason for the war will result in an end of combat.
It is an end in itself, the desired status quo the warlords base their power and economic success on.

In some cases, the government will even supply weapons to their opposition if they cannot continue fighting on their own, as was the case in Angola some years ago.

[Blade]

Don't forget drugs. It's harder to revolt when you're stoned.
In 2005 we had some quite big riots in France (in Paris' suburbs mostly). I still don't know for sure what were the reasons behind it. Sure, the context was (and still is) obviously there and the triggering events are clearly identified, but I'm not sure if that was enough to start this. I've read an article that said that a drug shipment had been seized which led to a shortage in drug supply, which helped trigger these riots. I don't know if that's true, but that makes sense to me.

[hermit]

Greets,

I was thinking about a while someone in one of the threads commented that Shadowrun is not really dark, just a bit smudgy around the edges, like all those bad 80s adventure movies rolled into one.

Well, I was thinking how can Shadowrun be made grittier. I don't see shadowrunners living in hovels, I don't see Seattle being a place of rain. I don't see NPCs just as well shoot them as help them.

So my question beyond the assenine "it's up to the GM!" how can SR be made not only darker but grittier. How can we take the happy realm of Shadowrun and turn it into a dark mysgonistic, racist world, where corp enforcers decide they don't like you and beat the living crap out of you just to show where they stand. No freedom fighters, no pretense even of ideals a world where you have to be a monster to survive.

Basically: have them do dirty jobs. Like, really dirty. Bodyguarding a corp fatcat on a trip to Pnom Pen (sic) where he indulges in sex with 3 year olds (which the runners have to supply him with and dispose of so that his habit remains secret), or have them guard a truckload of future forced prostitutes on their route from the Balkans to Japan. Have the Runners be the bad guys, and do bad guy things. Desintegrate any sense of heroism they have, have them make difficult and even revolting choices to pay their rent. And don't let that happen inf araway hellholes. make sure that's connected to the place they call home.

In my experience, this makes the world much darker than any descriptions of how everything sucks around them, or raping characters, stats/itemswise.

However, you have to clear this with your players. More than one player I know would be offended if his GM would make him essentially participate in child abuse, or any other rather revolting activity (of which there's more than enough in the setting).

[Chrysalis]

I am going to tell a story about an adventure years ago. The story goes there was a group of American mercenaries working for a private contractor. That contractor had been hired to run a shipment of weapons to Sierra Leone to certain groups interested in maintaining the well being of the mines there. They leave the United States on a container ship with the weapons flying under a Panamanian flag and transport themselves in the mid-Atlantic to a North Korean cargo ship flying under Ivory Coast colors. The old Liberty Ship was also transporting North Korean women to their destination.

Now the mercenaries in their still fresh urban camo and interceptor armor are in a bit of a quandary. Accepting the status quo would mean losing their morals seeing that the women maltrutioned as they are would be sold for six months of fun and games, however if they decide to rebel then they would be on a leaky ship in the Mid-Atlantic without a job. So they had to accept the status quo. Most did not want a second mission like that. They want easy solutions and good endings.


I guess for me Shadowrun would be run as a dirty nasty place, where walls separate the rich underclass from a very large minority who live on the garbage of the upper class. Workers maintain this status quo, doing the drudge work of top management. If you are a troll, dwarf or ork, the highest they can get is clean out the bathroom of executive suite, and if someone happens to lynch a troll well it wasn't a man was it?

The underclass keep on foraging where they do not belong, coming up through the sewers. People go out and buy guns to protect themselves. the situation is tense the government or what's left of it is run by the generals and the presidency is a door prize given out by the corporate court. America actively pretends to be a world power, but these enclaves of corporations are slipping away, stripping away every resource back to Europe where the real people live.

Magic has come back and so has the church. End of Days is what the church is whsipering and the street preachers are proclaiming. Magicians are killed for showing their powers and are considered a disease. The media portrays them as ticking suicide bombers holding their fingers on the trigger.

Shadowrunners are just in it for themselves. A simple and direct access to any resources they might want without having to fight years for that magical pension. They want the fast cars and loose women and their 15 minutes on the trid.

This is what I would consider a gritty Shadowrun, but its not Shadowrun and is probably unplayable.

[hermit]

I am going to tell a story about an adventure years ago. The story goes there was a group of American mercenaries working for a private contractor. That contractor had been hired to run a shipment of weapons to Sierra Leone to certain groups interested in maintaining the well being of the mines there. They leave the United States on a container ship with the weapons flying under a Panamanian flag and transport themselves in the mid-Atlantic to a North Korean cargo ship flying under Ivory Coast colors. The old Liberty Ship was also transporting North Korean women to their destination.

Now the mercenaries in their still fresh urban camo and interceptor armor are in a bit of a quandary. Accepting the status quo would mean losing their morals seeing that the women maltrutioned as they are would be sold for six months of fun and games, however if they decide to rebel then they would be on a leaky ship in the Mid-Atlantic without a job. So they had to accept the status quo. Most did not want a second mission like that. They want easy solutions and good endings.

Neat. I like to throw in such twists too, every once in a while. Propably, Johnson doesn't even know that the ship would be transpotring future sex slaves, too ; that's what the captain does on the side. And J had to find someone willing to engage the pirate-infested gold coast, AND willing to work with mercenaries onboard, to boot ... so he propably couldn't afford to be picky. The captain and his crew, however, are the ruinners only ticket to getting off that boat. So they cannot do anything about that really.

Not every run of mine would include this, as I find it would make the players too used to such surprises ...

I have once run an adventure where the PCs were to keep a man's house safe from intruders. He expected an attack. The atack, of course, was about the three girls he kept in his cellar for fun and games, and the opposing team was essentially a hooding party out to save children from a molester. of course, the group's leader had his Knights of the Red Branch membership invoked to make sure the team stays on track - the molester just happened to be a major contributer to the cause and of great importance for an ongoing operation, and the Knights wanted him to be kept happy.

Personally, I tend to see SR nations like the UCAS as somewhat like Yeltzin-era Russia or present-day South africa. Slowly rusting and failing states that once were great, that haven't yet understood their time is over, and are rotting from within as well as crumbling on the outside.

I see the world pretty much like you do, though I also don't fashion the entire world like that - there're nice spots there, too. They're just out of reach for Runners, most of the time. And even relatively nice places have their nasty underbellies (you know, like it's IRL).

I wouldn't really think it's unplayable, though.

[Heath Robinson]

The US, Britain, and plenty of other countries do. Why then are they not involved, "cleaning up" the Congo, Rwanda, Darfur, etc etc etc? The reason they don't is the same reason the megas and governments don't make things better in the Barrens - because those areas are out of sight, out of mind so to speak, and no one with the capability to cares enough to do anything.

Smart countries realise that there is no such "nation" as Congo, Rwanda or Darfur. These are colonial organisations that have been forced onto their modern residents with no independant foreign oversight. These residents do not like each other, and they're not like you or I. Get these facts (dutifully emphasized) straight in your mind and you might start to understand why Africa is a shithole. They don't want peace because the tribe next door is summoning spirits to make their women barren, so they're going to kill the fuckers.

The best thing that we could do for Africa is permit it to reorganise its political boundaries along tribal demographic lines. Unfortunately, the UN is too used to static situations for this to be allowed to occur. The next best thing we could do is to leave Africa the hell alone and wait for it to reorganise its tribal demographics along political boundary lines.

Having to struggle for your survival actually decreases the chance of revolution to occur, as people are too busy ensuring that they stay alive to do something to change their situation.

This is one of the lies that wannabe revolutionaries tell themselves. That the reason that revolutions don't occur is that people are too poor, too starving. The serfs of Russia were well fed, well educated and practically Middle Class, right?

The real problem is organisation; most of these countries aren't organised on large enough scales to produce a viable rebelion, or else there's some other conflict that is positioned to oppose any rebelion that forms. Y'know, like the long and slow bush war between the Hutu and the Tutsi that nobody is going to be able to stop without putting someone like Saddam Hussein (a man authoritarian enough to force everyone to play nice, at gun point) in charge.

A popular leader could lead still a rebelion successfully in these circumstances, but the concept of the nation is not strong in the minds of the residents in the country and the tribal affiliation of the rebel leader would offend other tribes into rebelling against their rule.

Don't forget drugs. It's harder to revolt when you're stoned.

You're taking the wrong drugs.


The Barrens is not Africa and will not be like Africa. People in the Barren do not consider themselves according to tribal afilliations, for a start. The guys in the other gang are at least fellow UCASians, or fellow NANers, or whatever. This goes a long way to avoiding the worst bits of Africa, since using every weapon in your arsenal is no longer on the table. A minimum of dignity and respect is granted to the other people. You don't rape them, for a start.

Sure, they might shiv you with a dirty knife. They're going to grant you as clean a death as they can, though. It's their own little bit of honour; no undue suffering for my fellow man.

[Chrysalis]

Yeltsin-era Russia was quite safe. I remember the stripping of resources. I also remember when things got bad certain commanders took an overt interest in the running of cities. Russia was quite safe, overall, like any place you have to know where you can go and with whom, and who to avoid. Back then the police were safe if underpayed so you had to keep some money on you just in case you got into trouble. Nowdays alot of the police force are returning Russian soldiers from Chechnya they will as soon as kill you as help you.

However I do see the UCAS as being more like Zimbabwe, it is a world after the apocalypse, but no-one dropped the bomb, no virus came to kill each other, just your neighbors. The government is a rusting solid system, the question is how to steal the most from it. It is a failed nation-state. Rampant inflation means that the almighty million dollar bill is worthless so you trade in the euro for your hard sells. Luxury items such as new home electronics and kitchen equipment the prices are in euros.

Wireless Matrix is available in Europe, in some parts of Seattle but for there to be a wireless matrix you need to have electricity, working infra, and disposable income in the hundreds of euros. Most people can't afford to eat let alone pay for wireless subscriptions to services they will never see.

I mean Europe is a different story, sure Marseille is a dangerous place, but you don't have your population dying of starvation. The trains still run on time in Europe and you can still live your life there without ever seeing someone shot. The EEC has made Europe into a fortress nation, it is that one bit of civilisation in a morass of cockroaches eagerly flushing themselves down the toilet bowl.

[VagabondStar]

William Gibson has used a good adjective in the last few books he's written:

"Blade Runnered"

[hermit]

Okay, I forgot you were a CP2020 player at heart. Then we differ quite a bit. My UCAS isn't quite Simbabwe (for one, it lacks Simbabwe's idiot dictator and underlcass racism that's killed the only economy they got). It's still got something resembling infrastructure, and no overly noticable famines (those still are primarily an african phenomenon).

As for the safety - that's the South Africa part.

[Chrysalis]

Okay, I forgot you were a CP2020 player at heart. Then we differ quite a bit. My UCAS isn't quite Simbabwe (for one, it lacks Simbabwe's idiot dictator and underlcass racism that's killed the only economy they got). It's still got something resembling infrastructure, and no overly noticable famines (those still are primarily an african phenomenon).

As for the safety - that's the South Africa part.

Does it show that badly. Or was it the EEC comment? Still I would then add into the mix local contractors which are trying to keep the whole rotting fruit together long enough that anything valuable can be stolen.

[hermit]

It was the famine. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

No offense intended, though; I own most CP2020 books myself and borrow stuff from them from time to time, mostly from chromebooks.

I'd actually love the NEEC becoming what the EEC was in CP2020.

[Chrysalis]

That was in CP2020's basic book but was retconned in Home of the Brave.

Well spotted (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Sir_Psycho]

Don't forget drugs. It's harder to revolt when you're stoned.
In 2005 we had some quite big riots in France (in Paris' suburbs mostly). I still don't know for sure what were the reasons behind it. Sure, the context was (and still is) obviously there and the triggering events are clearly identified, but I'm not sure if that was enough to start this. I've read an article that said that a drug shipment had been seized which led to a shortage in drug supply, which helped trigger these riots. I don't know if that's true, but that makes sense to me.

Interesting. I know that France's government had hoped to institute industrial relations reform around that time (I think), similar to what we had in Australia. Both countries had public protests against the reforms, as they were removing and reducing a lot of systems that ensured reasonable minimum wages and benefits for workers. Here in australia, the body that handled our unfair dismissal legislation was disbanded. Our non-violent protests didn't do anything, and due to a shift in the balance of power within our political system, the laws were passed. The french however, apparently set fire to cars and buildings in their protests, and the government was forced to back down on the reforms.

Perhaps this was a completely separate incident. I had never knew the french were in the business of setting fire to things. I just had a quick look and it looks like those incidents occurred in 2006.

[kzt]

This is one of the lies that wannabe revolutionaries tell themselves. That the reason that revolutions don't occur is that people are too poor, too starving. The serfs of Russia were well fed, well educated and practically Middle Class, right?

And which of the Bolsheviks were serfs? Lenin was the son of a Russian official. Stalin was the son of a prosperous cobbler. Trotsky was the son of prosperous Jewish farmer, etc.

Revolutions are almost always led by the middle or upper classes.

[Blade]

Interesting. I know that France's government had hoped to institute industrial relations reform around that time (I think), similar to what we had in Australia. Both countries had public protests against the reforms, as they were removing and reducing a lot of systems that ensured reasonable minimum wages and benefits for workers. Here in australia, the body that handled our unfair dismissal legislation was disbanded. Our non-violent protests didn't do anything, and due to a shift in the balance of power within our political system, the laws were passed. The french however, apparently set fire to cars and buildings in their protests, and the government was forced to back down on the reforms.

Perhaps this was a completely separate incident. I had never knew the french were in the business of setting fire to things. I just had a quick look and it looks like those incidents occurred in 2006.

These riots weren't linked to the industrial reforms. Industrial reforms would have been handled the good old way: people go on strike and the governement doesn't care much. Then the SNCF (train company) goes on strike and a lot of people can't go to work. The government accepts to negotiate with the unions, the unions get a few things, but not as much as they wanted. After a few days (or a few weeks in case of really big reforms) the unions realize that the government won't back down, and decide to stop the strike because if it stretches for too long, the worker will be very disappointed by the union's inability to get anything. So they deliver a speech stating that they got "significant progresses" and tell people to get back to work.
The only exceptions are when an election draws near, in which case the government will probably back down.

The riots were about something else. First you have suburbs where poor and unemployed people (mostly immigrants or sons of immigrants) are packed in horrible buildings with nothing to do. You also have the minister of security (now our President) who's fond of "order", and not much of immigrants, and asks the police to stop playing football with people there and to bash their head instead (he didn't say it exactly this way, but I think you get the idea). He also called the youth of these poor suburbs "scum", and said that he'll clean them out of the streets (this time literaly). Add in a few unknown elements (such as this drug shortage, and possibly some moves in the underworld) and when one day, two boys get killed by policemen, the riots started.

[hermit]

sks the police to stop playing football with people there and to bash their head instead (he didn't say it exactly this way, but I think you get the idea).

Even if we don't, the police nationale sure got that one right, from what I've seen a few years ago in Paris.

Add in a few unknown elements (such as this drug shortage, and possibly some moves in the underworld) and when one day, two boys get killed by policemen, the riots started.

It was Rodney King in French, pretty much.

[Sir_Psycho]

Whoops, I did get mixed up, but I mentioned that at the bottom. The industrial reform protests were indeed a year later. However, the protests and strikes did involve rioting and setting fire to things. (Following your link on to a list of riots, you can find them there) And therefore they weren't exactly handled in the "good old way".

Interestingly, we've had two riots here in Australia (Three, if you count the cronulla riots as two separate riots, as there were two opposing groups rioting in response to eachother). One was similar to the french riots, in that an indigenous kid was (allegedly, not that it matters in the scheme of things) chased by some police and ended up dead, and his community rioted. The other was due to racial/religious tensions (also focusing on immigrants, particularly islamic immigrants), which erupted after some (allegedly) lebanese guys beat up some surf life savers. Then there was a message proliferated via text message (and then the arguably irresponsible media) inciting a "wog and leb bashing day". Then that night the "wogs and lebs" rioted as well, vandalising properties and roughing up a few people.

The drug shortage thing honestly sounds pretty insubstantial, as Chirac's comments and the issues in the slums seemed like enough of a hot-bed for the youth deaths to catalyse a riot. That they were on edge because they couldn't get their drugs sounds a bit like propaganda and/or hearsay.