How do I introduce a grittier atmosphere?, changing playing types Options

[Saintgrimm]

I've never seen a random location generator for Shadowrun... and if I did, I still probably wouldn't use it. I tend to get a rough idea of what a neighborhood has in a few seconds that it takes me to describe it.

If you need some kind of help, I suggest you make lists of descriptives, like others have recomended. Then, maybe split those into different types of moods you wish to convey.

Then determine what will be in what kind of areas? A place might be all houses... but if it's apartment complexes, there might be a stuffer shack or two.. a run down gas station...
or you might be in a higher security area, where things look dull, but everywhere has a biz running.

For example..

Moods Cheat Sheet:

Depressing - gloomy, rain slicked, dingy, filthy, soaked, shadowy
Angry- torn, ripped, violent colors, heavy noise
Lonely - dark, quiet, stark, bland, grey colors or sterility

Then combine it with a neighborhood cheet sheet if you want. After a while it can become second nature.

For example
Barrens- Derelict buildings. Abandoned gas station. Stuffershack


Then you can end up just picking what feels right:

"Derelict buildings, their filthy sides rising up to wall you in on the floor of a black tarmac canyon, slick with rain and filth, pass by as you speed down towards the meet. The smell of sewage turns in your nostrils as the newest rain does little more than stir up the stench, rather than wash it away..."

Just an example. Again, practice in front of a mirror, or better yet with a tape recorder. Try to do prose like this at random, record it, play it back. Find out what sounds good and what doesn't. Then script some things that look good on paper and do the same. Alternate between them, and soon you'll find it flows.

[Siege]

Now, don't get caught up with painting atmosphere to the extent your players start nodding off while you describe the local Stuffer shack. :grinbig:

-Siege

[Saintgrimm]

LOL very true. And I've done it before. It takes balance.

Man, was I red when I looked over to find one of my players about to go to sleep from flavor text. Said it was the heat, and then he remembered I keep my house at 65. LOL.

It's cool. We all go overboard some times. You'll find the right balance.

[Tziluthi]

So, I guess, remember that the flavour text has to be engaging and concise, otherwise your game will turn into a Tolkien novel. :)

[toturi]

And it'll take 12hours to read the campaign only IC.

[Lash]

One of the best ways to give your players flavor text is to insert it into essential information. You can tell the players what they need to know while giving good description. The only problem is that it really does require balance.

Another great source of dark, gritty language is the video game Max Payne.

[Glyph]

Flavor text is good, but remember to break it up occasionally. If you stay in gritty mode 100% of the time, the players will begin to tune it out. Break it up with an occasional happy or lighthearted moment, to make the gritty stuff stand out in stark relief instead of fading into a dull background.

Be very cautious with limiting power levels and other types of GM fiat. Players don't like to be railroaded or manipulated. Instead, do what someone else suggested and let the dice fall where they may. Have logical consequences for player actions. Let them feel like they can succeed, but you won't cut them any breaks. Look through the rules and start using the full arsenal of nasty stuff in there. Start checking for cyberware stress and magic loss. Use street index and contact upkeep costs. Use racial biases. Have the Johnson and their contacts screw with them, not enough to count as a betrayal, but enough for them to realize that their lawless existence depends on the people who can get them gear and jobs.


The biggest problem with a gritty atmosphere is that it can discourage roleplaying sometimes. If the PCs are in a world with no friends, no noble causes, and nothing to live or die for but the almighty nuyen, then you might wind up with an amoral crew who will firebomb orphanages ("The last three orphans we ran into picked the face's pocket of the datachip we had just retrieved, led us into an ambush by a gang, and turned out to be an otaku who got us evicted from our own safehouse, respectively. Damn right we firebomb the orphanage. Orphans are pure evil.").

The trick with a gritty atmosphere is not overdoing it - making the PCs still care about the world that their characters live in. Some players enjoy to have their characters angsting and suffering. But others will be likelier to become more powergaming in their outlook, because only by being strong and brutal can they enjoy any level of what they define as "success". If a player was originally going to give the character the dependent flaw, and had an ailing father that presented all kinds of roleplaying opportunities, but decides "Naw. He'd just get kidnapped the first session, then he'd get killed off and I'd have to buy off the flaw." - then your gritty style has created a game world where the PCs are interchangeable callous thugs. So ask yourself the important question - do your PCs enjoy playing struggling, flawed people? If they don't, then the PCs might become more one-dimensional.

[Saintgrimm]

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Siege]

I hate to be the persistent naysayer, but be careful how many hooks you plant for your characters.

An old GM insisted on planting so many hooks so he could justify trying to drag us through Hell on Earth and back.

We're in a middle of a Wasteland, escorting a pack of gypsies who are dying left, right and sideways. I manage to scrounge a lot of crossbows -- I figure they're not accurate or great, but volumes of crossbow fire will either hit something or discourage raiders. Only to be told, "It goes against their cultural values."

Sorry, minor rant.

-Siege

[The Burning One]

[BitBasher]

I have been following this thread since it's inception but I am thus far at a loss to formulate a reply. I'm not sure why. I do think that some people on this thread are WAY off of what "gritty" really is.

My games are gritty. Gritty is not necessarily depressing, nor is it cyberpunk, nor is it apathetic. Some people are getting mood confused with atmosphere and genre. They are related but not directly so. Moreso if you want "Dark and Gritty" and not just gritty. Gritty also does not have to to with the powerlevel of the game, but instead the way it is presented... My darkest and most gritty game ever was 300-380 karma before it ended... amusingly enough the game ended *because* of the gritty, the team kind of swallowed itself and imploded.

I could run a gritty game in Disneyworld if I had to, tons of smilich children, families and all, in borad daylight.

Also keep in mind not all players WANT a gritty game, they do not want consequences for their actions, they do not want the game to function like a subset of reality. There are those that want the game to work like a comic book or 80's action movie. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's likely they will not enjoy a game that's as firmly planted as one in which you would neeed to enforce the necessary things to make it really gritty.

My thought process has not settled on one line of thought enough to gove a good description of how to accomplish this yet. I'll post again as soon as I have more of a solid idea for a post. My problem is I do not consciously think "gritty" I just do it.

[Kagetenshi]

If ye' want gritty architecture, try looking at buildings like Boston's City Hall.
Seriously. The entire architectural style is called neo-brutalist.

~J

[BitBasher]

Someone mentioned earlier in this thread that if you want an example of gritty, play the game Max Payne or it's sequel. here's some of my favorite quotes. All delivered totally deadpan, not in a joking fashion.:

------From the original Max Payne:

Max Payne: He was trying to buy more sand for his hour glass. I wasn't selling any.

Max Payne: [Narrating] There was no glory in this.. I hadn't asked for this grap.. Trouble had come to me, in big dark swarms.. The good and the Just, were like gold dust in this city. I had no illusions.. I was not one of them, I was no hero... Just me and the gun, and the crook... My options decreased to a singular course

Vinnie Gognitti: Police brutality!
Max Payne: I rate pretty high on that.

Frankie Niagara: Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Frankie "the Bat" Niagara.
Max Payne: "Niagara," as in you cry a lot?
Max Payne (voiceover): He had a baseball bat and I was tied to a chair. Pissing him off was the smart thing to do.

Vinnie Gognitti: You--you can't just kill me in cold blood!
Max Payne: You just keep telling yourself that.

Max Payne: [narrating] Collecting evidence had gotten old a few hundred bullets back.

Max Payne: And now I was going to kill her- the queen of the underworld who had tried to lift herself a bit closer to heaven with her drug money. No begging, no bribes, she knew better - honor among killers, "We who are about to die." We both know how this would end: in pain and suffering.

------From the sequal Max Payne 2: A Film Noir Love Story:

Max Payne: [narrating] Vlad was right. There are no choices. Nothing but a straight line. The illusion comes afterwards, when you ask 'Why me?' and 'What if?'. When you look back and see the branches, like a pruned bonsai tree, or forked lightning. If you had done something differently, it wouldn't be you, it would be someone else looking back, asking a different set of questions.

.
.
.
Okay, I gotta go replay both games now :P

[Rev]

Re federal office building:

The one I walk past isn't just any office building, it is the one with the passport office, state department branch, immigration, and seattle fbi office I think. So it is probably on the heavy security side. I happened to walk around three sides of it on the day I wrote that post and I saw three security guards outside (1 at front entrance, 1 at loading dock, 1 circling the building) and two inside manning the metal detectors all armed.

I expect they have some sort of official dress code, but even if they do not everyone who works there is wearing the same thing.

You are definately right about the slightly run down feeling. Everything is somewhat older and cheaper looking than in a corporate building.

Car bomb barriers come in two types. There are the big concrete planters full of dirt and plants. Those are the nice one. Then there are the regular concrete barriers used to divide traffic, or temporarily wall off places for cars. The ones with a cross section something like an upside down 'Y'. They already had some planters around this building but they were too widely spaced, so between them they set up the concrete barriers (jersey barriers?). Those have been there since the oklahoma city bombing (whats that five years?, ok 8 says CNN). They really ought to replace them with the planter type, these are very ugly.

Finally I think Canada is quite a bit different. Lower crime rates, less terrorism paranoia, etc.


Anyhow that was the closest I thought people might have had experience with.

I also took a couple walks at 1am during the WTO protests in downtown seattle. That was quite something: empty streets, helicopters overhead with searchlights, tired cops in riot gear, secret service with submachine guns (when the president was in town), a windy night with junk blowing around and everyone walking hunched over to keep out the chill.

[BitBasher]

Well the government building I work in I would have a lot of sympathy for anyone that tried to shoot their way in... of Course I work in the Clark County Detention Center (The Las Vegas Jail.) :D

Our computer systems are up to date (I put them in myself!), our security is very, very good. :D

[Siege]

US Federal security has been under fire (forgive the puns) ever since 9/11 with reporters trying to sneak weapons in to do "Exposés" on gaps in security.

Not having had reason to wander through a Federal building, I don't know if it's improved particularly, but some buildings have higher ratings than others.

Wandering through the CIA or FBI headquarters would probably garner a far different reaction from wandering through the Atlanta Federal Building. :grinbig:

-Siege

[Solidcobra]

"Vinnie Gognitti: You--you can't just kill me in cold blood!
Max Payne: You just keep telling yourself that. "

that one is, i think, slightly off, i remember it as

Vinnie: You, you can't just hurt me in cold blood!
Max: Uh-huh, you just keep telling yourself that

then again, it was awhile since i last played the game....

oh well......

[toturi]

[Siege]

I really wish that was true -- just like I desperately want to believe Area 51 is a decoy from the real repository of alien artifacts.

I _still_ can't believe some moron in the FBI didn't redflag a flight instructor's concern about someone who "only wanted to know how to take off, not land."

If idiocy and incompetence were treasonous...

I mean, bloody hell -- wanting to know only how to land a plane is one thing. Always be prepared and all that. But c'mon...only wanting to take off?

Sorry, will stop ranting now.

-Siege

[Shev]

You know, I'm surprised I haven't heard anyone mention Tamanous for use in a "gritty" campaign. For those of you who don't know, Tamanous is a criminal organization who specializes in organlegging (in fact, it seems that that is all they do).

These guys are truly sick. They work with the heads of brothels, taking away any bodies they might have accumulated through "rough" treatment by customers. Tamanous has even taken organs from random people on the street, taking some poor slot 's organs. It's not fatal, so the cops give it less priority. Worst of all, they keep young women imprisoned, artificially (perhaps naturally in some even sicker cases) impregnate them, then abort the fetus at about 3-4 months, "harvesting" the valuable tissue (for transplants and such). Oh, and they employ ghouls to guard their facilities.

All this is from the Underworld Source book. It's a little out of date, but I'm sure Tamanous is still around. THe UW book as a whole is great for running the various syndicates realistically, and I can't think of anything much grittier.

[Birdy]

<Wheezers voice on, shake crutch>
Them youngsters today are no longer watching da good movies
<End voice, store crutch>

Borrow "Soylent Green" and watch it a few times. Ignore the main ingredient of Soylent Green but rather look at:

The ordinary people using staircases as a sleeping place so regularly, that they "own" their place and guard it!

Feeding of the masses with cheap synthetics and massiv police action when a food riot breaks out

Lack of books (no place to grow trees) and heavily rationed water even for the working (Heston's a detective)

Open Corruption as a necessity to survive even in the police. Job loss as the biggest possible thread ("What's my share")

General overcrowding (2 persons at 20m2 including the shower/kitchen)

Power and threats as a way of live (What Heston does to the "furniture" is basically a rape)

And than the bigwigs and their lackeys

People called "furniture" (basically slavery) to be rented with the appartment

Natural food

Luxury



As a second source treat yourself to some of Pournelles "CoDominion" Stuff. The best sources are "Revolt on Warworld" and "The Prince of Mercenaries". Not the action/combat parts (which are great - as always) but rather the description of life on earth:

Distinction between haves (taxpayers) and have nots (the majority)

Cheap booth/drugs and synthifood for the masses

Regular sweeps by the SA-Type thugs of the Bureau of Relocations gathering up people to be deported.

Heavy security in the taxpayer enclaves. And very little privacy since everyone is out to make a career on your back!

A totally corrupt US Government (The current does not! even come close) using all means to enrich itself (i.e. Claiming the need to "Amerikanise" everybody and therefor having to eliminate the reservations when in reality they just want to sell the land)


As a third read (don't !!! watch) "A candle in the dark" (WW II espionage) Ignore the first chapters playing in the US and read the part where the heroine poses as a working woman in germany 1943/44, take in the disparity between the Nazis and the ordinary people. Other stuff (like the later works of Buchheim i.e. The Fortress) are also good reads


Add a healthy does of Kommisariat for state security/Reichssicherheits-Hauptamt/Bureaux of Home Security stuff and technologies and finish of with the black clad, mirror-visored, jack-booted security goons and the ever-sniveling blockwart/mailman/local "patriot"

Always show the players the difference between the haves and the have nots. Give them short stints in the world of the rich (long showers, real food, luxury cars) and then throw them back in the world of brownouts, water rationing and synthfood. Show them the toys of the rich (that rich teenager using the Fairlight Excalibur to play Donkey Kong 2060) and then take them back to their TRASH-80 equivalent cyberdeck that's still the best they can get and their prized possession.

High skills are okay since they need them to make up for their outdated equipment. Make them take B/R since most of the time they are the only ones who'll even try to repair the stuff.



Michael

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

The U.S. government does not have a real dress code, but as it happens an informal one has developed over the years. But it's not surprising to expect that the federal government would expect a certain level of business eqv. attire from its employees because they're professionals, and should be expected to dress like it.

I'd discuss security, specifically from my own experience pre and post-9/11, but ... Generally, the security was based on a perception of infallibility, and not the actuality of it. In all fairness to SR, that's what I would expect from 95% of any institutional security. They can, generally, be expected to deal with normal security issues. However, anything more than that... a clusterfuck, reinforcements, and containment. I think that, honestly, most security in SR is perception-based for most corp installations where if you generally look like you belong, you're okay, which has generally been my experience in many places you'd expect to be more secure.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

[Siege]

Ya know, I don't know how to reply to that.

While I have a reasonably good understanding of modern law enforcement theory, the degree of stupidity behind this particular blunder just amazes me.

-Siege