Shadowrun is dead Options

[Stumps]

[moosegod]

I'm really sick of all these "Shadowrun is anime" comments. This may be my intense hatred of everything Japanese showing through, however. Shadowrun IS Shadowrun. That's all it is an all it ever will be.

There may be elements of other genres in Shadowrun. All stories, especially the longer they run, incorporate other tales. One of my friends insists that Akira is one of the major influences for Shadowrun.

My response? Yeah, we have biker gangs and a dirty, gritty world. Sure the schools are screwed up. Some cyberarms look like the one the antagonist had. But I don't see anyone blowing up the center of Tokyo is some quasi-mystical sense. There was no war to screw up the world at large. Elements merge and there are other countries creating stories than Japan.

[Stumps]

I seriously doubt that Akira had a very large influence in Shadowrun.
It's a great little movie, but I doubt it had time to influence Shadowrun very much.
SR was released in 1989.
Akira was released in 1988.

It takes a little more than a year (if anyones tried) to pull things together well enough to make an RPG.
Would it have had some degree of effect?
Sure. It probably did. I'm sure some rigging flavor might have come out of that just as easily as Tron could have influenced concepts of the cyberspace.

But saying that it was one of the major influences....? I have my serious doubts there.

[audun]

[Deamon_Knight]

Stumps, my point was that Cyberpunk tends to be defined by technology, esp. the technologies that would blend man and machine, matrix, cyberware; and the consequences thereof. I don't feel that SR is defined by its technology. Cybered individuals get a +1 char modifier (sometimes), and (aside from Deus) the Matrix is just the internet.

We agree on what themes are common to Cyberpunk, but I think what defines Cyberpunk is a world remade by technology, and the impact that has had on people. All other themes are IMO, devices for conflict nessecary for storytelling rather than key points of Cyberpunk. SR is not defined by technologies, the majority of MAJOR, world defining events of SR are magic based. Lowyfr Runs Corps, the GGD and the fallout from it eliminate world superpowers, balkanize the globe, and set the stage for most of the events in SR. The effect that Technology has had on the world always seems less. This isn't nessicarily bad or unchangeable, it always what type of game your group wants, but it does seem to explain why some think SR is getting away from cyberpunk, I don't think that was ever the major focus, or really ever addressed beyond there being a Matrix in SR.

[Crusher Bob]

If the Matrix is just the Internet this implies that Dues is quite likely to really be and FBI agent pretending to be a preteen girl...

One of the themes of cyberpunk I think the discussion has missed so far is the empowering effect of technology on the indicidual. In almost all 'classic' cyberpunk (Neuromancer, Hardwired, etc) the characters are able to challenge the status quo not becuase of some 'magical inheritance' but through skills and technology. This is often re-enforced by the fact that the classic cyberpunk has brough themselves up from 'nothing' (typically starting their lives living on the streets).

Consider the characters able to challenge the status quo in The Lord of the Rings:

Gandalf: Wizard, powerful spirit. Almost none in the world like him.
Aragorn: Last of a line of great kings, wielder of a singularly powerful magic sword.
Frodo: Possesor of the most powerful magical artifact in the world.

When compared to the above fantasy characters, the classic cyberpunk is much more of an everyman. Notice how there are many hackers besides Case (and who in fact may be better hackers than he is), there are no other Gandalfs.

[Stumps]

That was kind of my point there Crusher Bob.
I think it was missed or mis-understood by others.

What I was trying to say was that technology in SR allows the characters to challenge the status quo, but they are also able to do this with magic.

This is where SR becomes different from your normal brand of cyberpunk.
And honestly...I think that was their point. I don't think they wanted to spit out a game that was just re-hashes of a collection of similar ideas on the same old theme.

I think they wanted to ante it up with magic.

So now, really...if you wanted a more acurate "label" for SR, it would be along the lines of cyber-magicpunk. (punk optional since Fields of Fire.)

[Crusher Bob]

Actually, magic tends to de-power the individual in SR. In 'normal SR' there are several magical individuals (IEs, Dragons, Horrors) that by the very rules of the world are unchallengeable by the everyman cyberpunk.

Notice how many fans of SR come out to defend how it is actually impossible to defeat the IEs, Dragons, and or Horrors.

In the classic cyberpunk if you have mister high up corp exec tied to a chair, pull out your gun and shoot him, you have a dead exec, the hard part is getting the exec tied to the chair (but this is still possible). In SR 1: you can't get an IE tied to a chair and 2: even if you could, your gun wouldn't wourk, or something.

Compare to ED where the Horrors are at least mechanically beatable (and also 'fictionally' beatable). IIRC the opening fiction of Earthdawn as 'Lorm was an angry troll...' not 'Lorm was the greatest troll warrior to have ever lived' and ends with 'this axe blooded a horror, some day it might slay one'... Notice the appeal to the everyman. Even the mightyest horror in ED Verjigorm (sp?) has stats and can conveivably be killed or severly wounded by a 'mighty band of heroes' (well, probably a quite a few more than a 'band').

In SR, a might band of runners can't even muss a IE's clothes because the IEs are written in as unbeatable. This is imho, why SR is not even heroic fantasy.

[audun]

[Fortune]

Whats the comparative Death tolls since the game's inception in 2050?

If I recall correctly (going from memory) ...

2 or 3 Great Dragons?

1 Immortal Elf?

1 AAA Corporation

Doesn't seem like anything is 'unbeatable' in the Sixth World. Difficult, yes, but it can and has been done.

[Ol' Scratch]

Only when the designers wish them to be.

[tjn]

Yes, but who brought them down?... it wasn't just any cyberjockey off of Shadowland.

[Kagetenshi]

[Wounded Ronin]

I was born in Japan and I've watched various anime shows since I was really little.

I just have one comment to make about "anime is shadowrun!!"

That comment is: If Shadowrun really were anime, it would be d20 and you'd have assloads of hitpoints.

One example: Look at Noir. Two smallish women repeatedly charge into buildings wielding crappy European made slightly outdated 9mm handguns with small ammo capacities and using the occasional cinematic martial arts move. But, they never have to reload, they never have any trouble decking guys three times their size, and for some reason they always win in the end even when the run directly at multiple opponents behind cover who are waiting for them with SMGs.

Now, what would happen in Shadowrun if you did that? You'd be screwed on stopping power, on range, and on them having cover and you not having cover. You'd be drilled and killed within a turn or two.

The only way that you could have something like that happen in an RPG would be with the d20 system with your millions of hitpoints and with the SMG goons have really bad to-hit rolls.

Another example: There was another anime that was releated in the US as "The Wolf Brigade", I believe. In short, in that anime there are this armored stormtroopers who fire LMGs from the hip and completely rip everyone up because they're just awesome like that. But in Shadowrun, with a non-twinked off-the-shelf basic LMG, you'd get screwed by double uncompenstated recoil and not hit anything. Then the guy you were trying to shoot would plink you with his pistol and hurt you more than you hurt him.


Yet a third example: A basic off-the-shelf katana *cannot* cut through anything, destroying castle walls and tanks, in Shadowrun. In anime, katanas often can. Because they're special.

[Kagetenshi]

For all your argument from authority, you’ve still mistaken anime for a genre.

~J

[Ol' Scratch]

Seriously. Anime is a medium, not a genre. It's like saying "Shadowrun is Live Action Film!"

If anything, I'd say Shadowrun and the shows people keep referring to as "anime" had similar influences... but neither inspired the other (except in the cases where they obviously did, like the Shadowrun manga).

[Shadow]

Anime is not a genre it is a medium. I know Doc just said that but I though it worth mentioning twice.

[mfb]

eh, it's a medium with a built-in set of common conventions. not all anime uses all of those conventions, but a lot of anime uses a lot of them--enough that you can apply those conventions pretty much across the board to all anime, and be correct eight or nine times out of ten. those conventions include things like katana being badass, tiny people with tiny handguns regularly blowing the bejesus out of larger and better-armed and -armored opponents, catgirls, etcetera.

[Kagetenshi]

You and I must be watching different anime, then.

Which, incidentally, seriously challenges your point.

~J

[mfb]

the fact that most people think of the same concepts when they say "anime"--the fact that many people in this discussion are mistaking anime for a genre instead of a medium at all--speaks pretty strongly for my point.

[tjn]

If people only saw Alf, Full House, or Family Ties clones as representive of American Television, they would also assume the rest of American Television is made up of kooky and off-beat families that utilize a laugh track.

Hasty Generalizations are not a sound foundation to build a point.

There is much anime that is good. Watch Wings of Honneamise.

There is much anime that is horrid. Watch anything with tentacles.

But anime itself, is just a medium.

[Ol' Scratch]

That, or in their mind they're confusing "anime" with a specific genre of the anime medium.

[mfb]

the distinction is only important to people who watch a lot of anime. and there is a lot of anime out there that follows those conventions i mentioned--and others--blindly and completely. the anime that doesn't follow them is a definite minority. just because the best anime doesn't tend to doesn't change the fact that the majority of anime does. i mean, come on, there's an entire roleplaying game dedicated to replicating the idiosyncrasies of anime. that really speaks to the validity of viewing most anime as fitting several broad generalities.

[Shadow]

I completely agree TJN. For instance, if someone only ever watched Episode II: Attack of the clones, they would think Starwars was asinine and stupid.

However most of us have seen the 'real' Starwars and no that it is not, only this latest incarnation.

My first experience with Anime was the classic Robotech. I loved it, but I didn't really see it as anime, just a cartoon that had a semi serious subject matter.

The next thing I saw was Akira, and that too I liked. But the next five or six things I saw were so horrid and disgusting that I didn't watch anything for years, until Ninja Scrolls. Now that was awesome.

My point is that a lot of anime is really horrid, but there are a few gems.

[Ol' Scratch]

Look at it this way. Live action cinema has a lot of conventions that are the same, too. But that doesn't make Citizen Kane the same as Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation beyond both being filmed in the same general medium.