Shadowrun as a dying setting? Options

[Fatum]

I've finally understood what repels me so much about the modern-day Shadowrun.
It isn't the lack of editing, or the adventures built on weird presumptions about the player logic, and not even the failures in the metaplot - all of that was present aplenty before, too. The problem is moving from what made the setting unique, and it didn't by far start with the Fifth Edition, either. Look, what made Shadowrun special? SuperAIs that hold a whole corporate city-in-a-city captive, and then dish it out in the brains of their followers (literally) - gone, disappeared. Bug City, a postapocalyptic wasteland full of dangerous spirits - gone, Chicago's becoming civilized again. Imperial Japan, a nationalist country with a persuasive culture and global influence - gone, replaced with shintoist ecology games and local rebuilding. Mysterious Great Dragons that decide the fates of civilizations - gone, now every Vory broad knows the most hidden of their secrets. Metatypes as a meaningful characteristic, the power behind political movements, including creation of new nations - gone, tolerance is the dish of the day, metahatred is a fringe phenomenon, and the insular states built on the idea of one metatype superiority are moving towards instead becoming "normal", losing their uniqueness. Megacorps ready to burn the Earth for an extra nuyen of profit, ghouls with their own state where of course people aren't eaten, poverty-ridden barrens full of legal non-entities - all of that has been moved out of focus and either disappeared there altogether, or at was least sterilized and normalized there.
All in all, the setting's losing what made it itself rapidly, and it's getting nothing it return.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

You mean the setting is becoming political correct?

[Chimera]

I would tend to agree. Perhaps the setting needs a new antagonist. Too bad the Yuuzhan Vong are in a galaxy far, far away...

[Stahlseele]

You mean the setting is becoming political correct?

That is not neccessarely a good thing in my eyes either . .

[Fatum]

I'm not sure whether the intention was to make it more politically correct, but it's having the sharp corners cut, yes.

As for new enemies - there were shedim, for instance, a great enemy with a lot of potential. What have they been up to after the New Jihad? Nothing much?
Judging by the current developments, we're seeing the return of insect spirits (except on a smaller scale and less logical than the Universal Brotherhood and the Bug City) and a nano-plague (which to me so far is not exactly breathtaking, seeing the jokes like nano-produced assault rifles melting to slag from it).

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

That is not neccessarely a good thing in my eyes either . .

Oh, I agree wholeheartedly.
I believe that the drift towards PC is to be capable of casting a larger net to try and bring newer players. Then again, this might allienate the old ones.
I mean, Shadowrun Online is coming. How many of you believe that the game will be PG-13? I do. Because if the game was to show the violence, despair and horror of a true dystopia, they would lose all the potential high school kids as clients.

Another thing possibly unrelated, but I've heard stories that pen and paper RPG has becoming more and more niche (than what used to be, exactly because of the rise of MMOs), don't know how true this is.

[Fatum]

As for me, making the setting less special is making it harder to sell to new players. It's one thing to pitch an awesome cyberpunk dystopia where elves have their own kingdom in Portland bent on racial superiority and megacorps are out to get you and rape the planet, it's quite another to sell a postcyberpunk where there are elves in Portland and kinda evilish megacorps.
New players (hell, all players) want intensity, not blandness.

[sk8bcn]

Oh, I agree wholeheartedly.
I believe that the drift towards PC is to be capable of casting a larger net to try and bring newer players. Then again, this might allienate the old ones.
I mean, Shadowrun Online is coming. How many of you believe that the game will be PG-13? I do. Because if the game was to show the violence, despair and horror of a true dystopia, they would lose all the potential high school kids as clients.

???

I don't see why that would ever dictate where the game is going. I mean I could create a PC game in Mootland in Lord of The Rings acceptable for 7+ and in the same universe do a darker one in the Mordor.

Likewise, not every SR tabletop has be put into Shadowrun Online.

[nezumi]

It's a new edition. My bet is their clearing out the old and they'll be building something new once the few core books are settled.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Certain settings to become PC either have to be stripped of everything that makes it unique or it just becomes something bland.
I mean, sure, LotR can be good for children but then again you better explain why it's ok to kill orcs and not humans, dwarves, elves and hobbits. You could make a whole game in the Shire where the players just have to deal with wolves and stuff...

Shadowrun has a LOT, a LOT mature content. The whole xenophoby stuff for different metahuman variants and even other sapient species., it has social classes struggle and the players are basically mercenary criminals. So, yes, creating a Political Correct campaign for Shadowrun would seriously harm the setting as a whole.

Toon on the other hand is a RPG that really any one could play it because the setting is completely based on cartoon physics.

[Sponge]

I find the setting's appeal remains unchanged for me. But then the appeal for me was never these specific events, because I mostly ignore them and the metaplot except as established history. None of the ingredients that went into making those events have left the setting, and I am at complete liberty to use those ingredients to create me own epic plotlines and world events.

[Abschalten]

I thought the line was doing fine until the Loren Coleman scandal pretty much made all the writing talent run away. War! was a pretty watershed moment for Shadowrun and CGL. That's about the point where everything started sliding downhill fast.

I think Ghost Cartels was the start of something really special, and we can only guess how that metaplot would've turned out now.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Ghost Cartels was indeed a very nice campaign book.

[Fatum]

It's a new edition. My bet is their clearing out the old and they'll be building something new once the few core books are settled.

I surely hope so, but I'm not quite seeing any conditions for that. Could be, of course, that they'll make the nanoplague something worthwhile, but minding how much has been lost without any recompense, I'm not sure it's helping.

I find the setting's appeal remains unchanged for me. But then the appeal for me was never these specific events, because I mostly ignore them and the metaplot except as established history. None of the ingredients that went into making those events have left the setting, and I am at complete liberty to use those ingredients to create me own epic plotlines and world events.

I'm not sure if you read by original post. Of the stuff I listed, a good half is setting fluff, not metaplot events. Like the omnipresent Japanese influence, or the metahatred and the metatype supremacy-based states, or the SINless masses. Those are the ingredients, and they're either gone or vastly toned down.

I thought the line was doing fine until the Loren Coleman scandal pretty much made all the writing talent run away. War! was a pretty watershed moment for Shadowrun and CGL. That's about the point where everything started sliding downhill fast.

I don't really think so. In my opinion (which might be of course biased seeing how I'm reading the books from the older editions now) the setting started taking a serious beating even before 4e release, and the Fourth did not make it any better.

[RHat]

I think part of the issue is that some of those elements originally had a sort of anchor in real-world worries, and became unmoored as the world changed. While that might not much impact the people who'd already been playing, it WOULD have an impact on bringing in new players, and if that weren't dealt with Shadowrun would probably have died some time ago.

It's the most basic problem of maintaining a "20 Minutes Into the Future" setting over the years.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I think part of the issue is that some of those elements originally had a sort of anchor in real-world worries, and became unmoored as the world changed. While that might not much impact the people who'd already been playing, it WOULD have an impact on bringing in new players, and if that weren't dealt with Shadowrun would probably have died some time ago.

It's the most basic problem of maintaining a "20 Minutes Into the Future" setting over the years.

Yes... This. So much this. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Fatum]

If anything, the world changed to resemble cyberpunk more, not less...

[Samoth]

I'm not sure whether the intention was to make it more politically correct, but it's having the sharp corners cut, yes.

As for new enemies - there were shedim, for instance, a great enemy with a lot of potential. What have they been up to after the New Jihad? Nothing much?
Judging by the current developments, we're seeing the return of insect spirits (except on a smaller scale and less logical than the Universal Brotherhood and the Bug City) and a nano-plague (which to me so far is not exactly breathtaking, seeing the jokes like nano-produced assault rifles melting to slag from it).

People complained about shedhim and horrors and other MagicRun things, but the flipside is running against EvilCorp #5 or yet another mob boss.

[Fatum]

I for one see nothing wrong about magical threats. I mean, technological threats are pretty omnipresent in the Sixth World.
Or, well, they used to be omnipresent before megacorps became oh so PR image sensitive.

[tjn]

Waitwaitwait... where's all those who were complaining about the grimdarkening of SR during the close of SR4? Moreover, championing Ghost Cartels as the direction they want SR to go in? This is me with my mind blown.

SR5 has had no metaplot currently only because Storm Front was a game changer that leveled the metaplot to its foundations in advance of the release of 5th edition. Subsequently, we've only really had the main BBB to come out for 5th. There has been no Renraku Arcology: Shutdowns or Bug Cities because there just hasn't been any plot books made for 5th yet. Given that the expanded rule books are quite likely to be the only books in the near future, there's a bit of argument in that there's no forward progression in the SR universe after Storm Front, but to say SR's metaplot is gone altogether is just being purposefully obtuse.

My personal experience is that SR has a problem with endings. There's been so many world shaking plots and conspiracies over the course of the line that have aftershocks and repercussions effecting everything that it stretches my suspension of disbelief to a breaking point. Fatum points at Deus and the arcology shutdown and declares it "gone." I view as a question of where exactly has Dues gone to? Yes, the arcology itself is no longer the gygaxian death trap, but Deus, in some form, is still out there. His otaku are still out there. The corps are still trying to unravel his technologies and the political fallout from a government having to take a military action to bail out a corporation flows directly into the DC power plays, which then opens up the Black Lodge and the IOND. And there's nothing to stop a GM from pulling something out of his ass and saying that one of Deus' projects, say in the depths of the nuclear power plants under the arc just got activated. Or the Black Lodge finally got ahold of all of the artifacts from the Dawn of the Artifacts series and pulled off a world shaking ritual. Don't be constrained by the lack of plot books for 5th telling you what to do, because there's more than enough plot threads left dangling for any GM to take and make his/her own.

As for the racism, I've felt it's never left and in fact has gotten more "realistic," in that it's just another jaded part of everyday life. Your average person will say Humanis is a bunch of nutjobs... but all their friends are humans, their neighbors are humans, and their co-workers are mostly humans, except for Bob, who we all know got hired only because the company didn't want to upset the National Association for the Advancement of Metahumans. That "I'm not Humanis, but..." or "Bob's an ork, but at least he isn't a technomancer..." screed and self justification of the inherit racism reads closer to my own perceptions and leads into how I can't take the over the top racism of the early works seriously.

Which goes back to RHat's "20 minutes into the future" point. SR needs to move and adapt to the current trends, politics, and most importantly, the current fears of our times. Cyberpunk was born out of the fears of the 80's. That's thirty years ago, and I don't believe that holding on to where SR was will attract new players, or continue to entertain older players that have already "been there, done that" for the original 80's fears, back in the 80's...

YMMV and all that.

[Glyph]

I don't think either the setting (powerful megacorporations, weakened nation states, great dragons and other mysterious behind-the-scenes types, and magic) or the premise of the game (criminals for hire who work for/against the megas, with a bit of Robin Hood idealism mixed in with a bit of noir and a bit of action movie) have changed that much. Some parts of the setting - racist Amerindians who commit mass murder but are still somehow the "good guys", elven totalitarian states, overpowered great dragons, Japan as the boogieman it was to some people in the 80's - are pure crap, and I am glad they are papering over some of it.

Honestly, I wish they would fill in some of the nuts, bolts, and everyday details, and stop trying to have an apocalyptic, world-changing event every month.

I think it is the mix of magic and technology that will always give Shadowrun its uniqueness. And I think it has transitioned to post-cyberpunk so well because it never went full-out cyberpunk (in the corporate feudalism sense). I mean that in a good way. Corporations may be powerful, but nation-states are still there, and the wild card of resurgent magic and all of its ramifications.

[Sponge]

gygaxian death trap

What an awesome phrase (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Curator]

Its basically the truth that we need to wait till more publications come out for more plot lines to develop, that's how they push the changes. I mean, the universe is what it is, even if it is evolving. but for anyone, like myself who's taken the universe and dove headfirst in, i'm enjoying the books based in the 50's and 70's. If you look at the plotlines, you can see that the plots hit a wall around 2063 and they just made a crash happen and pushed the 4th edition. they were touching on the idea of themes used in the 70's, but i guess they would think it easier to just force a huge change and then develop from there.

i don't think the universe or game is hard to sell at all. i haven't played a game yet, but i have about 10 new players ready to play when i can get a car to organize a game. all of them i basically convinced that its D&D/LOTR and Ghost in the Shell mixed together. bam! sold. OR that we can download an app and avoid the massive d6 rolling. i can't wait to play. but till then, i'm working on my 11th novel, and i'm almost done with every 4e book i can afford.. and re-reading the 5th rules again. i mean... i don't understand why this game isn't way more popular. it's super violent, it's a twisted mad awesome world, (i mean combat biking) it's very anime esque, and it's got AN amazing history to divulge in.

for future plotlines... the undead, another plague, superb cyborg's & AI, maybe a land war invasion inside the americas, the idea of diving to deep in metaplanes and bringing out unknown entities, space travel, and even more advanced technology. plus there's tons of cities with no plot lines ever yet. in fact i better see if my idea for a story can put a known surving city on the map.. i need to get that taken care of. so sweet

[RHat]

I gotta be honest, as far as plotlines go I spent most of SR4 really hoping they'd do something awesome with Dissonants - something to really drive home that they're a big damn threat to everyone.

[Whipstitch]

You mean the setting is becoming political correct?

Not to single you out Shinobi, given that the OP certainly touches upon the concept first, but this is a really loaded way of terming it and I think it has very little to do with the real problem besides. Really, I think Glyph is closer to the truth. A lot of the stuff sounds somewhat interesting if wacky when summarized, but in practice a lot of those old SR staples were really borked in practice even if you were OK with the subtext. For example, both Tirs and the NAN had serious timeline and demographics issues that were not adequately addressed by the fluff that was available. And that really is a problem, because it's harder to extrapolate what should be happening within a setting when none of the premises you're working with make a lick of sense to begin with. As a GM, I look back at a lot of that old stuff and just don't want to deal with it. Any comprehensive fix I can come up for that stuff would end up being sufficiently complicated that I may as well start from scratch and concentrate on my own pet obsessions instead, since it would hardly be more work. Furthermore, such issues have a real trickle down effect, since if the Tir seems kinda stupid then that splash damages Immortal Elves who are intimately connected to those settings which in turn hurts the perceived value of the rest of the metaplot given that the whole Earthdawn thing is supposed to be kind of a big deal. So, really, you end up with a lot of incentive for the writers to wallpaper over that crap and start over, but at the same time it must be said that it's still a net loss for the setting if that crap gets tossed in a landfill without having enough good content out there to replace it first.