Rebooting Shadowrun, ...because it's trendy in Hollywood Options

[Not of this Worl...]

Kinda of sad, but I can see where you are comming from with he reluctance to delve into 4th edition... I don't agree with it, but do see your point (sort of anyway)

Just a small note here, but after 50+ years, those "settings" will no longer be really all that unique, you have had a full generation growing up with the idea that the NAN and the Tir exists... they will become commonplace...

Keep the Faith

Not at all, in that generation time frame I can't think of a single other game that is futuristic and has NANs. What other came has futuristic Elven Principates?

Now Corporate states, yeah I can think of a whole slew of those games off the top of my head. it is very cliche'.

It isn't just those areas either. The whole way the Middle East was finally developed in the last years of 3rd and the little bit in 4th has been very blah for instance. The uniqueness and conflict of stereotypes was a big part of what made Shadowrun so awesome and much of the development of SR has just been to make it a more "modern" setting that can connect to real life.

Also the whole argument that others have that "well 4th Matrix isn't more borken than 3rd" is not a motivator to give up an existing edition. It isn't that 3rd edition didn't need improvement, but it didn't get improvement it simply got a reboot to a more blase' setting that had the same number of mechanical difficulties.

[kzt]

The elimination of the 25 different magic systems was kind of nice.

What we liked about 4th was that it made low skills at least somewhat useful and it allowed someone to get a general idea of the difficulty of a test without needing a spreadsheet. "If I give the PCs a roll with 6 dice and a target number of 11, what are their odds?" "If it's a target number of 13 or 10, how does that change it?"

[Semerkhet]

Not at all, in that generation time frame I can't think of a single other game that is futuristic and has NANs. What other came has futuristic Elven Principates?
Now Corporate states, yeah I can think of a whole slew of those games off the top of my head. it is very cliche'.
It isn't just those areas either. The whole way the Middle East was finally developed in the last years of 3rd and the little bit in 4th has been very blah for instance. The uniqueness and conflict of stereotypes was a big part of what made Shadowrun so awesome and much of the development of SR has just been to make it a more "modern" setting that can connect to real life.

Since you chose not to reply to my rebuttal of your "High Fantasy" claim or clarify what you mean, I will have to do more inference from your latest statement. It seems to me that you think that Shadowrun started out as being far more "fantastic" than it was. The sourcebooks on the two Tirs did not try to make them out to be some kind of Elfland out of Lord Dunsany. You seem to be disappointed that Southwest Asia was not developed as a magical land a la Arabian Nights. If you want a setting full of magical wonderlands unconnected to the real world, then run with it. The setting material is the easiest part of this game to ignore. Judging the actual rules system is an entirely different issue.

I wonder how many games were on the market in 1989 that featured "corporate states?" Not many at all, IIRC. This aspect has become more common in RPGs since then. Even then, I don't think it's cliche. Quite the contrary, in fact. The theme of Corporatocracy is just as topical as it ever was.

re: the more "modern" setting. That's what the original authors were doing; they connected to their modern day of the late 1980s. If you got your wish and Bob Charette were brought back to help with SR4 I don't think you'd get anything much different from what we got. The only reasons you could think that SR1 was not connected to it's own "modern day", just as 4th edition is, is that you are either too young to remember the 80s or you are old enough, but have lost perspective.

Also the whole argument that others have that "well 4th Matrix isn't more borken than 3rd" is not a motivator to give up an existing edition. It isn't that 3rd edition didn't need improvement, but it didn't get improvement it simply got a reboot to a more blase' setting that had the same number of mechanical difficulties.

I think the SR4 matrix rules are noticeably better than any previous edition, in that I'm actually using them in a game I'm running. I never had a PC decker previously; I just hand-waved all the Matrix stuff away with NPCs. This is all my opinion, and if you like a previous edition's rules better, then great. I like SR1, SR2, and SR3. I like SR4 better yet. I don't think the setting is more blase at all. I think that your problem is that as the setting has been expanded and detailed over time it hasn't conformed to your "High Fantasy" ideal, however you're choosing to define it.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I think the SR4 matrix rules are noticeably better than any previous edition, in that I'm actually using them in a game I'm running. I never had a PC decker previously; I just hand-waved all the Matrix stuff away with NPCs. This is all my opinion, and if you like a previous edition's rules better, then great. I like SR1, SR2, and SR3. I like SR4 better yet. I don't think the setting is more blase at all. I think that your problem is that as the setting has been expanded and detailed over time it hasn't conformed to your "High Fantasy" ideal, however you're choosing to define it.

I have to agree here about the Matrix Rules... SR4 MAtrix rules are actually playable, where earlier editions were not... in no game prior to 4th edition was a Decker allowed as a player character in any of the groups that I played... Deckers were people that you went to to get information and it was always run in the background... they are actually very playable now... who cares if the MAtrix as portrayed in 4th is not as realistic as the real world... that is not a concern, it is a staple of Cyberpunk Genre and it works...

Keep the Faith

[Cthulhudreams]

Judging by the number of threads no-one actually plays the SR4 matrix the same. So what the rules are is something that people can use to get close enough to a solution that works based on what they read.

[Krypter]

Keeping the thread on topic, I would make the following changes to Shadowrun to reboot it:

1. Change the "Japan menace" to the "China menace".
2. Balkanization via multiculturalism run rampant (cf The Diamond Age)
3. World Cyberwar II to redraw the lines of political states +
4. Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations spreads across the world and sets the stage for:
5. Global megacorporations as final guarantors of community safety

Throw in dragons, elves, etc. as per usual, but emphasize zombies as a global factor as they're now a popular public trope.

Oh, and thanks to Ravor for having the most knowledge and wisdom in this thread.

[Cthulhudreams]

China vs Japanese menance doesn't work if you want to include balkanisation. China has to balkanise if anywhere else does. If china collapses, there is no menace.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

China vs Japanese menance doesn't work if you want to include balkanisation. China has to balkanise if anywhere else does. If china collapses, there is no menace.

Lest we forget, China has already Balkanised...

Neither here nor there, just Sayin'

Keep the Faith

[Cthulhudreams]

Oh yeah, but we're taking about rebooting, so I'm assuming things 'unhappen'

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Oh yeah, but we're taking about rebooting, so I'm assuming things 'unhappen'

Well... That's true, forgot about the Undoing bit...

Keep the Faith

[Krypter]

Balkanization does not mean collapse. A region could be economically and culturally dynamic/predatory without being politically united. Think of the Asian Tigers during the 70s and 80s, except with China the economic/cultural effect could potentially be a magnitude greater. Japan happens to be a strong unitary state, but a feuding Chinese confederation could potentially be a much greater menace in economic and other non-military terms.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Balkanization does not mean collapse. A region could be economically and culturally dynamic/predatory without being politically united. Think of the Asian Tigers during the 70s and 80s, except with China the economic/cultural effect could potentially be a magnitude greater. Japan happens to be a strong unitary state, but a feuding Chinese confederation could potentially be a much greater menace in economic and other non-military terms.

Interesting Idea...

Keep the Faith

[tete]

I wonder how many games were on the market in 1989 that featured "corporate states?" Not many at all, IIRC.

Cyberpunk 2013 (1988), Rifts (1990), SLA Industries (1992), Cyberspace (1989), Traveller (1977)... There were more in the early 90s but thats what I played.

I have to agree here about the Matrix Rules... SR4 Matrix rules are actually playable, where earlier editions were not...

I really hate this statement, because the 4e matrix rules are 1e matrix with more skills (boo!) and less nodes/complications (hurray!)... If you can play the 4e matrix you would have no trouble playing 1e matrix. You may need to have everyone get a pizza but the mechanics are very similar. If you had gone to a 1e GM and said, I want a single node matrix rule set with a fixed TN you would have ended up with 4e...

[edit] In my 1e/2e pre VR 2.0 days the GM would just have the decker run against the CPU. If you beat the CPU you beat the system, no pizza break needed. I will also argue that since VR 2.0 the pizza break decker was unneeded. Its no more a mini game than the face having a conversation with a security guard and just takes normal PC rotation skills.

[Not of this Worl...]

Since you chose not to reply to my rebuttal of your "High Fantasy" claim or clarify what you mean,

Sorry, did you think yourself entitled to a response? I respond to who I choose to, and a big Wall-O-Text is a big turnoff.

I will have to do more inference from your latest statement. It seems to me that you think that Shadowrun started out as being far more "fantastic" than it was.

No, I don't think you paid attention to what I wrote closely. A lot of people call Shadowrun a mix of Sci-Fi and Fantasy, but its origin (the writing has gone many places over the years) was nothing so generic.

It is a mix of Cyberpunk and High Fantasy. Specifically a mixture of Tolkien-esque high fantasy and traditional folk tales ala Francis James Childe and traditional Native American legends & folk tales. The High Fantasy was thrown under the bus with 2nd edition to fit the new paradigm of creating the Earthdawn setting and somehow selling it as a prequel game to Shadowrun.

You seem to be disappointed that Southwest Asia was not developed as a magical land a la Arabian Nights.

Actually I'm disappointed that the cradle of civilization with thousands of years of interesting history was rendered down to "Its all one big Pan Arab-Muslim empire" ... kind of like today. There are so many things that could have been done with it and they simply went with the most boring and non-controversial one.

I wonder how many games were on the market in 1989 that featured "corporate states?"

LOL, where were you in the late 80s and early 90s? This was the height of Cyberpunk! Most games and many movies dealt with "Evil Corporations taking over" tm It is hard to think of many futuristic works that didn't have the "Evil Corporations take over" motif.

That's what the original authors were doing; they connected to their modern day of the late 1980s.

You should talk to the original authors sometime or listen to them in their own words. We can expect to see Weismann's (one of the original authors) take on it in the next few years I expect. The fact that he hired Mike Mulvihill to work on the project should say something about it though.

I never had a PC decker previously; I just hand-waved all the Matrix stuff away with NPCs.

Maybe you should have tried it. I never found it to be a problem and there were a lot of ways to avoid the "pizza run" Decker situation.

Anyways don't expect too many replies simply because it bores me. I've participated in a lot of different edition discussions over the years and I don't expect much to change. CGL is simply way too wedded to the reboot Fanpro came up with and the current level of sales is enough for them.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I really hate this statement, because the 4e matrix rules are 1e matrix with more skills (boo!) and less nodes/complications (hurray!)... If you can play the 4e matrix you would have no trouble playing 1e matrix. You may need to have everyone get a pizza but the mechanics are very similar. If you had gone to a 1e GM and said, I want a single node matrix rule set with a fixed TN you would have ended up with 4e...

[edit] In my 1e/2e pre VR 2.0 days the GM would just have the decker run against the CPU. If you beat the CPU you beat the system, no pizza break needed. I will also argue that since VR 2.0 the pizza break decker was unneeded. Its no more a mini game than the face having a conversation with a security guard and just takes normal PC rotation skills.

In a lot of ways you are right... howeverm teh instance that i played in SR1 with a player Decker (Never again after that mind you) who was optimized to be the baddest thing in the matrix, the interplay between the GM and the Decker took almost 5 hours, the rest of us just listened and ate... And yes, it was indeed Pizza...

Keep the Faith

[DigitalOYABUN]

Actually I'm disappointed that the cradle of civilization with thousands of years of interesting history was rendered down to "Its all one big Pan Arab-Muslim empire" ... kind of like today. There are so many things that could have been done with it and they simply went with the most boring and non-controversial one.

ummm non-controversial is what everyone tries to do with the Muslim world (please leave out you anti-American rhetoric...its old and not pertainant to the subject). Do you know what happens when you offend the Muslim population? a small percentage become enraged and they do things......bad things. Cartoon of The Prophet published in newspaper= riot and newspaper offices burned after being stormed. Making a film of the inequitencies of women in some Muslim communities= the film maker, a decendant of Van Gogh being murdered. Boring is safe when you consider the real risks of cheesing off that very small (again a reminder its very small) percentage of overzealous believers (who in all likelihood are only looking for a reason)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

ummm non-controversial is what everyone tries to do with the Muslim world (please leave out you anti-American rhetoric...its old and not pertainant to the subject). Do you know what happens when you offend the Muslim population? a small percentage become enraged and they do things......bad things. Cartoon of The Prophet published in newspaper= riot and newspaper offices burned after being stormed. Making a film of the inequitencies of women in some Muslim communities= the film maker, a decendant of Van Gogh being murdered. Boring is safe when you consider the real risks of cheesing off that very small (again a reminder its very small) percentage of overzealous believers (who in all likelihood are only looking for a reason)

Really, it is that small percentage that give Muslims a bad name... In fact, ALL of the Muslims that I know have bad things to say about that small percentage, because even they know that they are viewed through their lens...

Keep the Faith

[DigitalOYABUN]

Exactly my point, it is that small percentage that gives them a bad rap. Most people regardless of race, religion or socio-economic class conduct their lives in a 'moderate' fashion.

[Omenowl]

Ah to reboot shadowrun.

Well I would probably get rid of the whole native american angle. It doesn't add anything to the story and really just seems silly. It was a major turnoff when I first saw it.

I would cause a pandemic virus that kills about 75% of the people off. As despair reigns then massive release of psychic energy caused by the deaths opens the metaphysical world. This triggers the goblinization, infected, etc. In this post apocalyptic world the nations sort of balkanize just due to the massive loss of people. Cities become more like city states with a relative no man's land between them inhabited by thugs, ruffians and awakened creatures. Strong countries still exist, but their power is much diminished and corporations begin to dominate as the threat of moving your industrial facilities could spell doom for a city.

Massive armies and navies disappear because the infrastructure to support them is gone. Instead regiments and battalions are the norm rather than divisions. Decdicated combat ships are more along the lines of coast guard cutters rather than the super carriers of years past. Merchant ships now the largest ships carry guns and marines to protect themselves from pirates.

Agriculture is in shambles. The massive farms that once existed now require large numbers of people to protect them from juggernauts, raiders and wild animals.

The infrastructure for the matrix and vehicles still exists, but is beginning to crumble.

[kzt]

I would cause a pandemic virus that kills about 75% of the people off. As despair reigns then massive release of psychic energy caused by the deaths opens the metaphysical world. This triggers the goblinization, infected, etc. In this post apocalyptic world the nations sort of balkanize just due to the massive loss of people. Cities become more like city states with a relative no man's land between them inhabited by thugs, ruffians and awakened creatures. Strong countries still exist, but their power is much diminished and corporations begin to dominate as the threat of moving your industrial facilities could spell doom for a city.

Ah kind of like Thor Meets Captain America?

[Platinum]

I would like to see shadowrun become more of a framework, and have more community based source material. Forget the metaplot stuff and concentrate on sourcebooks that let you expand the genre like, post-apocalyptic, steampunk, waterworld, alien races/stargate scenario, animal chimeras (not furries). Shadowrun has such a great base to build on.


Could have sourcebooks for whatever course of history your reboot setting you wish. Reboot at will.

[trechriron]

I would like to see shadowrun become more of a framework, and have more community based source material. Forget the metaplot stuff and concentrate on sourcebooks that let you expand the genre like, post-apocalyptic, steampunk, waterworld, alien races/stargate scenario, animal chimeras (not furries). Shadowrun has such a great base to build on.


Could have sourcebooks for whatever course of history your reboot setting you wish. Reboot at will.

There are so many generic RPGs out there you can do this with, I don't think SR would benefit with such a treatment. It really is solid in its niche. I think this would hurt the game IMO. This coming from a generic system freak. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Saint Sithney]

Actually I'm disappointed that the cradle of civilization with thousands of years of interesting history was rendered down to "Its all one big Pan Arab-Muslim empire" ... kind of like today. There are so many things that could have been done with it and they simply went with the most boring and non-controversial one.

It's really hard to get mad at the devs for keeping the game Eurocentric. It's still just entertainment for profit, and you've got to play to your audience.

If you want to do some poli-sci speculation and create some unofficial source materials though, you're in the right place. I'd love to bring Dubai into the 6th world.

[DigitalOYABUN]

It's really hard to get mad at the devs for keeping the game Eurocentric. It's still just entertainment for profit, and you've got to play to your audience.

If you want to do some poli-sci speculation and create some unofficial source materials though, you're in the right place. I'd love to bring Dubai into the 6th world.

As a poli-sci major (international relations and comparitive politics tract) with minors in Economics, History and World Culture Studies I'd love to work on some stuff.

[Synner667]

So, now i'm back after a few days away...
How's the reboot going for everyone ??

Anything constructive ??