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Neophyte Runner ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 2,078 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 67 ![]() |
The mentioning in the other thread about Shadowrun being "furry" got me thinking. Long ago, Shadowrun was a spin off the cyberpunk genre, complete with its typical elements of dehumanizing technology, faceless megacorporations, edgy yakuza, chrome, leather, and cyberdecks. Since then, the authors of the cyberpunk genre, people like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, have said that cyberpunk is a literary genre of the past, less relevent in the modern age and having suffered from its elements being commercialized (Shadowrun, interestingly enough, being an element of that commercialization).
Since then, those authors, as well as others, have moved into what they call "post-cyberpunk" and "slipstream" literature. Post-cyberpunk has many elements of the cyberpunk genre, but its characters are usually less dehumanized and more an integral part of an evolving world. Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age is seen as a good example of post-cyberpunk literature. Slipstream literature is usually rooted in the existing real life day, but with a fantastical twist of some sort. Books like William Gibson's All Tomorrow's Parties or Tad William's Otherland books are seen as slipstream, as well as most of Bruce Sterling's recent books. Anyway, the point of this thread is that when I sit and look at it, it seems to me like Shadowrun is picking up these fundamental changes, intentionally or not, and it is shaping the game. Technology has become less dehumanizing in Shadowrun; most players don't use cyberware to make their characters "inhuman" but are leaning towards more unobtrusive 'ware or bioware. Decking moves more towards "Matrix-on-the-go" and working deckers into mainstream play, as opposed to seperating them into their own isolated world. What about the faceless megacorporations? Well, I'd argue they've become less faceless. The corporations have been linked to "personalities", either in the corporation itself or in key celebrity figures in the corporation (Richard Villiers, Damien Knight, Lofwyr, etc.). In addition, the overwhelming power of the "Big Eight" has not only been expanded to ten, but has been eroded by an increased focusing on smaller corporations and the entire corporate world as a business ecology. Elements like yakuza, chrome, leather, and cyberdecks are fading away into a myriad mass of evolving ideas. The yakuza are one of many; not only in the criminal element of SR, but now so much of the game also revolves around organizations people form to fulfill a role in the global society. The Draco Foundation, Yucatan rebels, the New Revolution, the Roman Catholic Church, etc. The world is not run entirely by megacorporations anymore. Icons like chrome and leather and cyberdeck cables have turned into orksploitation, neo-tribalism, and the Wireless Matrix Initiative. The world of Shadowrun is looking more like our own real world with a fantastical twist, like Slipstream literature. It's even moving towards mimicking elements in the real world, like wireless technology or genetic engineering, in exchange for sticking to traditional cyberpunk elements. Shadowrunners have moved away from being dehumanized, obsolete humanity railing against a corrupt social order and more towards an underground, but necessary, facet of 2064's social order who help define the world, even if that isn't their goal. Just look at how many of the recent events in Shadowrun's world were influenced by the actions of shadowrunners. They are far from being cut out of the world; their strings pulled by faceless megacorps. The world of Shadowrun is populated by hundreds, if not thousands, of communities based on various ideals that form an ecology in the world, more like The Diamond Age's phyles or Snow Crash's franchised institutions than Neuromancer's faceless, monolithic megacorps. Even Shadowrun's recent horrors, like the Renraku Arcology shutdown, were an optimistic view of technology (the ideal of a perfectly-run and user-friendly arcology) turned horribly wrong by the frailities of humanity (religious otaku cults and an AI who seeks basic "human" rights). And when you factor in magic, Shadowrun's truly fantastical twist on an otherwise very "realistic" world, it's mostly a humanizing factor, not a dehumanizing one. Magic empowers the individual, is based on communal ideas of schools and religions, and brings people together in ritual and ceremony as opposed to the cyberpunk idea of technology seperating people and dehumanizing them. Anyway, I wouldn't be afraid of the idea that Shadowrun is drifting from cyberpunk ideals, because even cyberpunk has drifted from cyberpunk ideals. I think it's more interesting to talk about what Shadowrun might become in light of these literary and social changes. |
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Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 25th July 2025 - 11:34 PM |
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