Shadowrun is About..., ... isn't this a matter of opinion? Options

[Tashiro]

I've noticed a few times on the board, when someone steps outside of the 'stereotype' of Shadowrun, someone will pipe up and say 'well, maybe you're playing the wrong game because Shadowrun is about...' And my first gut instinct is to say 'bull****'. Shadowrun is a setting ... an entire world filled with variety. That's like saying 'Earth is about making money'.

To me, Shadowrun is about exploring the 6th World, in any way you wish to do it. Period. It isn't about playing the 'street level guys trying to survive in the shadows' or about 'being a crack infiltrating team in a world run by the corporations', or about 'being a sinless no-one who is a disposable asset'.

These are, in my mind, facets of Shadowrun. I've played a runaway trying to make good for themselves, I've made an ex-military with a legitimate job and SIN who does illegal work on the side, and I've done police officers trying to do their job and work completely legit. I've considered running games far outside the normal comfort level for the typical group ... from hunting down medicine in some remote, dangerous place, to a team of rockers trying to make a name for themselves, to members of a sports team trying to survive in the cut-throat world of professional sports.

So... here we go: What do you see Shadowrun as, and how have you tried to break the mould?

[Ancient History]

Shadowrun is about having fun, dammit. Enjoy yourselves fanboys and girls! I want each and every one of you to enjoy the shit out of every shadowtalker comment and sidebar.

[MaxwellHouse]

I agree that Shadowrun is, at heart, a shared-world setting, not an easily definable cookie-cutter dungeon crawl or politically heavy RPG. As for myself what Shadowrun has all ways meant, it's a dark near-post apocoliptic story-telling experiance. I unfortunatly was a little young when CyberPunk was in it's hey-day, and started playing SR during second editon around the age of eight... yeah. I know definatly a little young to really grasp the grime and grit but the GM and players I tagged along with back then were outstanding (or at least that's how I remember it). So to me I look at Shadowrun from the streets up. I've played in a wide varitey of campains; from DocWagon games to LoneStar high threat responce teams to Go-Ganger and Urban Brawlers. All in all what made SR interesting in my opinion was the "the end is neigh" feel it has. Yeah magics returned, yeah there's a hoop-load of tech that's sprung up to keep the world occupied, but there's all ways that slimy filth just underneath all the glitz and glam. Violence in the streets, subdued and complacent wage-slaves, subtle and overtly evil spirits, massive natural disaters. I'm a non-pink mohawk loven' SOB, Shadowrun is about the streets to me. People in desperate situations turning to desperate solutions. Even in aformentioned non-standard campains the flavor has always been one of desperation and a looming cataclysm. Guess I'm a masocist... and I love the cyberware btw. While the idea of chopping off a perfectly good limb seems to me, in real life, to be rather drastic and abhorant... within the confines of the ShadowRun universe it works. The world, as Stephen King sais in The Dark Tower, seems to have "moved on" ideas have changed but there's still that desperation and want to topple the system, break away and cause some confusion, and ultimatly overcome adversity and be damned the consiquences... Don't know if that's answered anything at all really. I guess SR isn't just about shooting some guard or grabbing some paydata to me, it's the universe it's set around.

[Tashiro]

Hmm. The strange thing is, I don't necessarily see Shadowrun as apocalyptic (or even post-apocalyptic). I tend to look at movies such as I, Robot, and Minority Report for inspiration, and see more the idea of technology (which I consider magic to be a part of) racing forward and never looking back.

Someone once mentioned 'Film Noir' for Shadowrun, and I barely know the genre... I guess different flavours for different people. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[MaxwellHouse]

Guess I was allways looking through the out of character goggles at the Earthdawn, crossover inevitability. And reguardless is the world was realy ganna end or had all ready started it was a constant feeling oozing from the campains I'd ran... then again my older cuz and my more contemporary friends are all sick-minded twisted individuals and seem to gravitate to the filthier side of events (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif) Combat Drugs, Fists full of ammunition and RockandRoll lol, let the archologies burn!

... we pulled a lot from the campy Johny Mnumonic and Escape from New York... road warrior sort of settings... see SR can offer Everything!

[toturi]

Shadowrun is what each of us want it to be. It is more a living setting than any of the Living Bullshit that RPGA produces. As a community we influence the setting and direction of the game. It evolves with us. It changes with us. It is us.

Oh, and Shadowrun is shooting people in the face for money. Don't forget the money.

[MaxwellHouse]

Somtimes for free... money can't buy you love (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

[Kingboy]

But it can afford you a reasonable physical facsimile...

[toturi]

Somtimes for free... money can't buy you love (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

Take the money and the love.

[nezumi]

I think it's important to differentiate what served as the inspiration for Shadowrun/what niche the system was designed to fill and what the system is FOR. Shadowrun was intentionally made so you can use it in all sorts of weird and unexpected ways, so I guess that's what it's 'for'. But simultaneously, there is a distinct flavor, setup and philosophy which goes into it and defines it as specifically Shadowrun. You can run an accounting sim using Shadowrun, and while that may be what Shadowrun is for (i.e. - people getting together and having fun), it wasn't what was specifically in mind when it was designed.

[rathmun]

Somtimes for free... money can't buy you love (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

That'll be 100 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) each for these chips, experience an hour of blissful romantic entanglement, feel your heart flutter as you set your eyes on her/his face go for a long walk along the beach, whatever you want I can make it happen for you chummer, just a hundred nuyen an hour.

[Machiavelli]

I've noticed a few times on the board, when someone steps outside of the 'stereotype' of Shadowrun, someone will pipe up and say 'well, maybe you're playing the wrong game because Shadowrun is about...' And my first gut instinct is to say 'bull****'. Shadowrun is a setting ... an entire world filled with variety. That's like saying 'Earth is about making money'.

To me, Shadowrun is about exploring the 6th World, in any way you wish to do it. Period. It isn't about playing the 'street level guys trying to survive in the shadows' or about 'being a crack infiltrating team in a world run by the corporations', or about 'being a sinless no-one who is a disposable asset'.

These are, in my mind, facets of Shadowrun. I've played a runaway trying to make good for themselves, I've made an ex-military with a legitimate job and SIN who does illegal work on the side, and I've done police officers trying to do their job and work completely legit. I've considered running games far outside the normal comfort level for the typical group ... from hunting down medicine in some remote, dangerous place, to a team of rockers trying to make a name for themselves, to members of a sports team trying to survive in the cut-throat world of professional sports.

So... here we go: What do you see Shadowrun as, and how have you tried to break the mould?

Hmmm...in some way i feel adressed, i really don´t know why. ^^

But no matter how you want to see it, basically Shadowrun is about criminals that work for the megacons for money. You do illegal jobs that shouldn´t be linked to the employer. What you do out of this setting, if you play it at all or make something completely different, is up to yours, because the system is free. But it doesn´t changes what SR is basically about to be.

[The Jake]

I can sum up Shadowrun in three words.

Guns. Magic. Tech.

It doesn't matter what you do apart, so long as you include those three elements. That's it.

People talk about the punk-with-mowhawk overtones in SR1 vs the more transhumanist overtones of SR4, etc. But seriously - at the end of the day it just comes down to the guns, the tech and the magic - and the varying degrees of which are combined.

There are RPGs out there for guns, RPGs for magic and for tech. But is rare for all three to be combined and seriously, of those that do, none of them hold a candle to Shadowrun in terms of how well integrated they are.

- J.

[Bob Lord of Evil]

Shadowrun is what each of us want it to be.

Absolutely right. Just like our world you can have horror, mystery, action, espionage, comedy, etc., it is a place what you do in that space is entirely up to you.

[Kerenshara]

Interesting question, and I think perhaps a MORE interesting (and telling) question might have been "What is the 6^th World to you?"

Shadowrun is (and always has been) a cutting edge mechanical framework for role-playing in the 6^th World. Each revision has attempted to address the inevitable shortcomings in the previous version while expanding and developing the timeline of the 6^th World. It presents a way to simultaneously have the bleeding chrome of a dystopian cyberpunk future and the mystery and wonder of a magical fantasy world. The most recent version has moved to an ever more story-centric approach to the rules, as opposed to the older versions where a degree in higher mathematics was somewhat helpful, and part-ownership in a dice-making consortium would be self-serving. The system itself attempts to bring together nebulous qualities such as luck and a holisitic view of the body and soul while at the same time allowing for modifications to firearms and vehicles, and virtual combat on the 'net. Few actual systems are able to successfully combine such widely divergent elements into a single framework, and the mechanics are designed so that the origin of an effect is largely irrelevant, the effects are handled in the same manner.

To me, Shadowrun is a tool for telling a story in a unique setting.

Now, care to start that second thread? *wink*

[Pendaric]

What Kerenshara said.

And dont forget the,' for fun' in the 'Shooting people in the face for fun and profit'.

[tete]

I don't entirely agree, the name Shadowrun implies your going to go on a Shadowrun. Playing Lone Star, Doc Wagon, and alike are fun awesome and can certainly be done in Shadowrun but I don't think its standard or precisely defined as Shadowrun. Its like playing Mortals, Mages, Werewolf, and Fae in Dark Ages Vampire. The main focus of the game is Vampires but that doesn't mean you have to stick to the main core concept.

[Tashiro]

I don't entirely agree, the name Shadowrun implies your going to go on a Shadowrun. Playing Lone Star, Doc Wagon, and alike are fun awesome and can certainly be done in Shadowrun but I don't think its standard or precisely defined as Shadowrun. Its like playing Mortals, Mages, Werewolf, and Fae in Dark Ages Vampire. The main focus of the game is Vampires but that doesn't mean you have to stick to the main core concept.

I'd say it is more like saying you're playing 'World of Darkness'. Shadowrun to me is the setting. They chose the name for the selling point, but it doesn't have to be the defining point. Sort of like Earthdawn... the name is the selling point. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Wesley Street]

<Darkseid>SHADOWRUN IS.</Darkseid>

[Omenowl]

The main point of playing a game is for fun. If you aren't having fun then you are playing it wrong. Now this is subject to interrpretation, but mostly I look at it at being fair as a GM and playing in character as a player doing things everyone as a group agrees on. This is more playstyle and player dependent.

Now that said there is the default way of playing shadowrun. One looks at the name of the game, the default archetypes, equipment presented, the rules given to get a good feeling of the default way to play. You can see most of the archetypes are well equipped with military grade light weapons. Stealth, weapons and magic along with matrix rules show what the average party composition can be expected to have. Does this mean that is way you have to play? No, but don't be surprised that the people who are attracted to the game will want to explore that direction.

[tete]

I'd say it is more like saying you're playing 'World of Darkness'. Shadowrun to me is the setting. They chose the name for the selling point, but it doesn't have to be the defining point. Sort of like Earthdawn... the name is the selling point. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I'd say its more like playing 'Vampire' or 'Mage'. Sure you don't have to all be Vampires but the books are written in a style that implies that is what your going to play. Unwired for example is written for hackers not for corporate matrix security guys.

[GreyBrother]

Shadowrun isn't about Fun. That's roleplaying in general (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Shadowrun is about a world that, as pointed out here, "moved on". It's a possibility of our world with Hope and Despair prancing around the edge of the Abyss. There is poverty, street violence, drugs, wasted lives, corporate enslavement, spiritual corruption as a real force and much more. But there are also people who want to change that. Some runners do it, some wageslaves actually do want change and some powerplayers do actually give a shit about what happens after them. Shadowrun is the ideal escapist world to me, where things broke down enough to let certain things go, but in other areas tightened up so strong that there seems no way you could change it for good.
It reflects in my characters, most of them are idealists or just curious and naive-seeming. A fellow player once said "You [meaning me] don't play Shadowrun, you explore it." and i think it's well put. That's why i dig alternate campaigns, "exotic" character concepts and such.

Shadowrun is a game and a vision. I don't know what will happen 2011 or 2012 but i hope something along the lines of the awakening happens. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)