Hardboiled SR Options

[tweak]

I'm on a Raymond Chandler reading frenzy, and I was thinking about introducing some Chandler like elements to my games. I can bump up the level of corruption, and I can have a lot of nice
femme fatales. I'm still trying to get down good femme fatales in my short fiction, so this is an area I definitely want to explore in my games. I also need to up the level of violence.

Any suggestions?

[Snow_Fox]

sure look to Robert Parker's spenser series. mainly small hand guns and hand to hand stuff in the modern world.

[Demonseed Elite]

A cast of ambiguous characters, who may or may not be on the PCs' side. They probably shouldn't trust any of them, but it shouldn't be clear which one of them may stab you in the back. Another staple is to have a powerful, wealthy and utterly decadent character, sometimes with disturbing or perverse hobbies. Sometimes this character is the person who hired the PCs, which might make them feel downright dirty just working for them.

[kzt]

You need to make heavy weapons harder to get. Nothing ruins the atmosphere like 2 airburst frag grenades among the thugs.

I'd make anything other then handguns hard to get (not by the abstract availability either) and make grenades, and selective fire weapons larger then smgs impossible to buy.

[kzt]

You need to make heavy weapons harder to get. Nothing ruins the atmosphere like 2 airburst frag grenades among the thugs.

I'd make anything other then handguns hard to get (not by the abstract availability either) and make grenades, and selective fire weapons larger then smgs impossible to buy.

[Saint Sithney]

Make the whole thing take place in a single Arcology. That way you can restrict access as needed to facilitate the story.

[MikeKozar]

You need to make heavy weapons harder to get. Nothing ruins the atmosphere like 2 airburst frag grenades among the thugs.

I'd make anything other then handguns hard to get (not by the abstract availability either) and make grenades, and selective fire weapons larger then smgs impossible to buy.

You can say that again!

Have a strong police presence, with weapon/cyberware scanners. Warn the players that any time they are in KE's jurisdiction (i.e. any time they travel) they have a X in 6 chance of encountering a scanner. Shift X up or down occasionally to keep things interesting. If they are carrying any R items when the X comes up, test their licenses. If they are carrying any F items, skip right to an attempt to arrest them. If they manage to escape, good for them - if they resist and wound a cop, expect a war against the Knight Errant forces. If they give in without a fight, I would limit the 'punishment' to 24 hours, a fine, and the offending items being removed. If those mods are built into cyberware, the 'ware will be replaced with street-legal variants - yeah, the cheap, off-the-shelf plastic arms, and Y50 vision-only bargain bin cybereyes.

There should be ways around this, of course. Low-profile weapons would be worth the cost. Gray-market courier services might be able to deliver items to a cache ahead of time. Shielded vehicles with proper permits might not get checked at all, if you have the connections to score one.

The random dice roll is intended to scare the PCs into taking precautions. GM still gets to decide what exactly the police presence is, between a sluggish Thundercloud drifting along the street (easy to run from, but will call cops and deploy RFID tags) to a manned patrol car with very savvy veteran officers. Not that a beat cop should be able to take a Runner team, but they might just radio SWAT before they even turn on the lights and try to pull you over when they realize they're looking at a bunch of metahumans and mages armed for an assault. Choppers show up while you're still deciding if resisting arrest is a good idea.

You can also use these random checks to provide some color in the background - the PCs are carrying only their street-safe gear, but they spot the cops busting someone else. Maybe they deserved it, maybe not. Kids with hot-sim modded decks, or party drugs...or maybe a dealer pushing something ugly. Maybe the perp tries to shank the cop and make a run for it, and maybe the runners decide not to let the scum win. Maybe they decide not to get involved, and realize later that patrols on that street are stepped up and hostile. Either way, the PCs develop a relationship with the local cops.

[tweak]

I think the police in the story should also be just as corrupt as the corporations and the characters.

[kzt]

You have to be careful about how far you carry the whole "everyone is corrupt" bit. I played a champions game where the GM was channeling "Chinatown", it was kind of annoying.

[MikeKozar]

You have to be careful about how far you carry the whole "everyone is corrupt" bit. I played a champions game where the GM was channeling "Chinatown", it was kind of annoying.

You can make the corruption more apparent by having good cops trying to do the right thing, who have to stop helping the PCs because the corrupt guys in charge are making them. I'm thinking of Karrin Murphy, here.

[tweak]

You can make the corruption more apparent by having good cops trying to do the right thing, who have to stop helping the PCs because the corrupt guys in charge are making them. I'm thinking of Karrin Murphy, here.

I was thinking of taking more of a L.A. Confidential or Life on Mars (UK version) approach to the police. If I'm gonna channel someone, I want to channel DCI Gene Hunt.

[Blade]

Hardboiled mixes extremely well with cyberpunk. Replace "negro" with "troll", "spic" with "ork" and "rich dandy" with "elf" (and/or mage). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I have written an article about that, but it's in French. You can find it here.
To sum it up:

Setting: economic crisis, rise of crime, violence and immorality, big divide between rich and poor. Nothing to adjust here.

Atmosphere: it's a harsh reality out there. You don't downplay it, but you don't stress it either. You should tell the story with a simple and direct language, have the NPC talk with the street language (except for the higher class). Even combat should be simple, brutal and direct: no acrobatics and style, just a few cahotic seconds, a few shots, and one side is left standing.

Characters: Mooks are stereotypical but main characters are more complex and realistic. All characters try to get by in an hostile society. They can try to escape with drugs, gambling, sex or any other mean. They can try to shield themselves, becoming violent to prove to themselves that they are tough guys. They can try to get higher on the social ladder or cling to some values. They'll often group themselves with people who share the same race/belief/social group, isolated from the outside world. The main idea is that, by trying to get away from the world's darkness, they fall into it. Because of that, most if not all Noir character will have something to hide.

Scenario: A Noir scenario is complex. It often starts with a simple event which leads to an investigation (a murder, blackmailing...) which leads in turn to something bigger. The story behind it all might be simple, but the problem is that every person involved has something to hide. As the story goes on, some of these people turn up dead, and the things that everyone wanted to hide start getting unveiled, revealing the worst things metahumanity has to offer. Most of the time, the characters aren't leading the story forward: the story happens around them, and they do what they can and so do everyone else. Most of the time, by the end of the story the truth is known but it doesn't matter anymore since everyone was destroyed in the process.

PCs: The biggest problem with a hardboiled Shadowrun game is that PC aren't necessarily hardboiled heroes who drink whisky and hide their emotions behind a mask of toughness. They might also be too strong to get beaten up correctly by mooks. If you want them to get along, a good thing is to ask them how they manage to survive emtionnaly in this rotten world and to have them realize that they don't just live there, but are forced to take part in it.