I am going to loose serious geek cred for this, but. . . Options

[baronspam]

I have seen the phrase "Pink Mowhawk" and "Little Pink Mowhawk" used a number of times to describe (i think) a game/camgaign style. What exactly does that mean and what is the reference?

I am sure I will branded an unwashed newbie for asking this.

[nezumi]

AWESOME JUMPING THE MOTORCYCLE THROUGH THE EXPLODING HELICOPTERS, BACKFLIPPING INTO FIFTY NINJAS WHILE SHOOTING YOUR AK AND USING YOUR GYM-KATA SKILL TO KNOCK THEM ALL FLAT, WHILE YOUR MAGE AND CYBERDECKER FLY IN ON THEIR DRAGON, KIYO AND BLAST THROUGH THE WALL CLEARING THE ESCAPE ROUTE WHOOOOOOOO!!!!

(It's playing fast, loose and loud, with limited enforcement of 'real world' consequences.)

[Vuron]

Pink Mohawk is over the top 80s style action more common in the earlier versions of the game. Big pink mohawks, mirror shades, big guns and bigger firefights, typical 80s action star explosions, etc.

The more common style is Black Trenchcoat which is serious action with complete professionals. SR has slowly become more and more Black Trenchcoat over the years but there are still Pink Mohawk elements hanging out in the closet.

[Mäx]

Pink Mohawk refers to Game and/or character(s) that are totally over the top, as opposed to the black trench coat and mirror shades brigade of the ice-cold pro's.

Typical hallmarks of a pink mohawk campaing are severe lack of concugensies for having big firefights nad similar stuff during a cource of the run.

[Adarael]

Pink Mohawk: Like an 80s Action Movie. Complete with ninjas. Hair metal and/or power ballads optional.
Black Trenchoat: Like Heat, or Ronin. Slipping up will cost you your life and everything you hold dear.

Optional genres:

Chrome Robot: Like mid 90s anime, ala Ghost in the Shell, Cybercity Odeo 808, or Akira. Add more robots, more inexplicable philosophy, and bouncier bits on the ladies. Big guns and big consequences.
Gray Martini: Pseudo-retro film noir style. A touch a black trenchcoat, but with more vileness on everybody's part and less "be perfect all the time or you die", because you're a little fish in a big pond and nobody will notice if you don't stick your nose out.
Electric Elephant: Bollywood Kung Fu monks, secret agents played by Shah Rukh Khan, Airplanes that are also hotels and are run by robots and then EVERYONE DANCES AND SINGS ABOUT UNREQUITED LOVE.

Full disclosure: I totally just made those last three up.

[Yerameyahu]

Some good threads on this previously, so be sure to search.

[Synner667]

Pink Mohican = take a look at much of the Shadowrun artwork, and play the game it inspires, which is the game inspired by the books and films of the time.
Black Trenchcoat = where you take yourself too seriously and think multimillion yen bank accounts or budgets are streetlevel.

Full disclosure: I totally just made those last three up.

And they are just as awesome and viable !!

[CanRay]

SR has slowly become more and more Black Trenchcoat over the years but there are still Pink Mohawk elements hanging out in the closet.

Which is funny, because most of the homosexuals are out of the closet by Shadowrun time. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Guess there has to be SOMEONE in there. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Headshot_Joe]

Which is funny, because most of the homosexuals are out of the closet by Shadowrun time. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Guess there has to be SOMEONE in there. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

"Hello, my name is Damian Knight, and I'm a closet Pink Mohawker..."

Big Touble in Little China is Pink Mohawk

The Matrix is a bit Pink (giant robot battles, impossible gun-fu stunts) at times, but is also heavily Black Trenchy

Enemy of the State is completely Black Trenchcoat

[Ascalaphus]

I think this is one of the best descriptions:

It's also a drink you can order at Club Penumbra. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

It's the style of game when RPGs were still newish and people thought of Shadowrun as "D&D with Guns". More Punk, Less Cyber, essentially. Take the first part of "A Clockwork Orange", mix in everything you know about Punk Culture (If you're not old enough to remember Punk when it was real, research!), add in Fantasy Elements... Then pour in RoboCop and The Terminator. Season to taste, and cook at 400 Degrees until the guy in your oven breaks out and punches you in the face.

Follow the quote back to read a nice topic about it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[CanRay]

The drink comes with a little paper umbrella of The Union Jack that's frayed at the sides. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Critias]

"Pink Mohawk" catches a lot of flak it doesn't deserve, or at least it gets stereotyped as a lot wilder than it has to be. Every game of Shadowrun (and even every printed Shadowrun adventure, sourcebook, or what-have-you) isn't Pink Mohawk or Black Trenchcoat, it's somewhere on a sliding scale between the two.

Taken to the utmost extreme, Pink Mohawk is cartoony nonsense that is a parody of Shadowrun. Taken to the utmost extreme, Black Trenchcoat is every bit as unplayable, because it means doing away with the things that make shadowrunners possible, it would mean ramping up security "logically" and "realistically" to the level where the game is an impossibility, and it turns into soul-crushing boredom and paranoia until the slightest misstep gets the party killed.

Pink Mohawk is fun. Black Trenchcoat is realistic. Pick your poison, find your own personal favorite spot along that sliding scale.

[CanRay]

Pink Mohawk is the Extreme Liberal (Left Wing) of the game. Black Trenchcoat is the extreme Conservative (Right Wing) of the game. Ice Cold is right in the middle, who swings back and forth depending on the situation and personal background.

The Accountant From Hell, for example comes off as a Black Trenchcoat, planning everything to a T, insists on split second timing, and tries hard to keep things professional.

Pup The Dog Shaman is Pink Mohawk, he's angry, and wants to share that anger with the world. He's smashing walls and shooting things up left, right and centre without a care in the world for consequences as long as he gets to the target of what's pissed him off the most.

Both can swing the other way (Or at least to Ice Cold) quickly if their berserk buttons are pressed.

[suoq]

Missions, due to timeframe and encapsulation of each mission and some of the completely unjustifiable stuff that happens in them has always struck me as Pink Mohawk in both Season 3 and Season 4 which makes me wonder about Vuron's "more common in the earlier versions of the game" comment. I suspect I played with very different people in the 80's than he did.

[Vuron]

Missions, due to timeframe and encapsulation of each mission and some of the completely unjustifiable stuff that happens in them has always struck me as Pink Mohawk in both Season 3 and Season 4 which makes me wonder about Vuron's "more common in the earlier versions of the game" comment. I suspect I played with very different people in the 80's than he did.

For me at least Laubenstein's art and the cover of 1e Shadowrun (particularly Lady Tsung in her cutoff shorts and Bikini Top exemplifies Pink Mohawk, some of Steve Prescott's stuff in 3e comes close but for me at least 1e was very Pink Mohawk. Later editions seem to have toned down the Lady Tsung style dresscode and settled into a much more Black Trenchcoat motif. Elements that are too light in feel like /dev/girl and the Attitudes book do exist but they seem more like exceptions to the base rule of highly professional elite level shadowrunners.

Missions might be more Pink Mohawk than the base game but IMHO the game seems to have moved away from some of the more over the top elements that made 80s SR such a remarkable newcomer on the gaming scene.

[suoq]

??? We have a shootout with almost everyone taking cover vs drones blowing up, a chopper, and someone using swords on the other. We have a trenchcoat armor over a set of "california girls" clothing vs an evening dress OVER an armored vest (and that's one custom fit armored vest....)

I'm sorry. I'm just not seeing it.

I'll give the SR4 cover credit. It's nowhere near as Pink Mohawk as the covers for Unwired (firefight, no cover), Arsenal (seriously....), or Street Magic (which looks like an 80's action movie).

And SR1 had the ultimate non-violent archtype. I miss the rocker.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

??? We have a shootout with almost everyone taking cover vs drones blowing up, a chopper, and someone using swords on the other. We have a trenchcoat armor over a set of "california girls" clothing vs an evening dress OVER an armored vest (and that's one custom fit armored vest....)

I'm sorry. I'm just not seeing it.

I'll give the SR4 cover credit. It's nowhere near as Pink Mohawk as the covers for Unwired (firefight, no cover), Arsenal (seriously....), or Street Magic (which looks like an 80's action movie).

And SR1 had the ultimate non-violent archtype. I miss the rocker.

I really do love my Rocker Character... He is a SR4 Character, which makes him even better... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[kzt]

Enemy of the State is completely Black Trenchcoat

I've been told by actual intelligence types that Enemy of the State is one of the movies that best "gets" how that kind of organization works and how people inside think. They also hate it and think the entire concept is absurd, but it's miles ahead of 3 Days of the Condor and similar trash.

[nezumi]

Optional genres:

Chrome Robot: Like mid 90s anime, ala Ghost in the Shell, Cybercity Odeo 808, or Akira. Add more robots, more inexplicable philosophy, and bouncier bits on the ladies. Big guns and big consequences.
Gray Martini: Pseudo-retro film noir style. A touch a black trenchcoat, but with more vileness on everybody's part and less "be perfect all the time or you die", because you're a little fish in a big pond and nobody will notice if you don't stick your nose out.
Electric Elephant: Bollywood Kung Fu monks, secret agents played by Shah Rukh Khan, Airplanes that are also hotels and are run by robots and then EVERYONE DANCES AND SINGS ABOUT UNREQUITED LOVE.

Full disclosure: I totally just made those last three up.

Wow, +1 karma for an excellent post.

I've actually played two of those. I am deeply intrigued about the third (sounds kind of like Exalted, actually).

[Adarael]

I never got to run my Electric Elephant game, due to time constraints, but Exalted was a major inspiration for it, actually. It came to me as an evolution of a "Sidereals as MI6 agents in Yu-Shan, when Infernals had already suborned the Celestial Bureaucracy." And then I thought it would be even more fun to go totally gonzo and run a Shadowrun game where valid PC options were things like "Natarki Ninja-Masseuse" and "Robo-Asetic Hit Man".

The idea behind the song and dance numbers was that they were going to be in-game events that refreshed edge, gave bonus Karma, or both.

[nezumi]

The idea behind the song and dance numbers was that they were going to be in-game events that refreshed edge, gave bonus Karma, or both.

I am so stealing this. I don't know for what, but I'll find something.

[ggodo]

I am so stealing this. I don't know for what, but I'll find something.

I've got a theory. . .

[Bodak]

I am going to loose serious geek cred for this, but. . .

I think you mean lose.

[CanRay]

No, The Geek Is Loose... And now we know the truth!

[Wakshaani]

For the record, my game tends to be "CyberNoir", where the players are little fish in a big pond, pulpy types who aren't GOOD, but are better than most. They've very much got feet of clay and tend to hang around, well, the shaodws of the world. Downtown is a dangerous place to be... but you can survive in the slums. You only stick your head out long enough to get something done, then go back and lurk where The Man doesn't go.