Three Things Options

[Demonseed Elite]

Been thinking a lot about Shadowrun and how you change a game and yet have it remain essentially the same. That got me thinking about the core things I feel need to be preserved from one version of Shadowrun to another, so it's still Shadowrun. Setting aside, because that's fairly easy to keep if you try at it, here were the top three things that came to me.

Legwork - The period of time before the run. Working contacts, setting up the plan, doing the digging. Legwork is one of those things I've felt was a really critical, but often overlooked, piece of Shadowrun. The run itself is the truly exciting part, but the contacts are often where I put the long-term dramatic emphasis. The shadowrunner calls in a favor from his contact to get him through the run, but what happens when the contact needs a favor back? What happens if the people the runner worked against find out his contact leaked him information? Will there be retribution? What did the runner have to do to make the assistance worth the contact's while? I would say to preserve this sense, any version of Shadowrun should have mechanics for contacts, information searches, acquiring gear, fencing the loot, and the like. The network of exchanges that goes on between the actual runs.

Tactics - Every run starts with a plan. And then the plan goes to hell. If the runners keep their cool and apply smart tactical decisions on the fly, they can usually pull their asses out of the fire. This is sort of a mantra of Shadowrun; so many of the fictional pieces revolve around how the plan goes to hell and how the runners figure out a way to survive and succeed. The tactical part is important to me; Shadowrun isn't really a game of total chance (dice rolls aside). It's about making the smart choices and taking the appropriate actions, because failure to do so is lethal (see my third section). And it's about teamwork. Shadowruns are done in teams, in the classic A-Team/Mission: Impossible/etc. style, where everyone has a role and if anyone screws up, everybody is screwed. That's part of tactics. Any version of Shadowrun should have mechanics in place to represent player choice and emphasis on the action he believes is correct to take. Luck, courtesy of the dice, factors into any decision, but planning and choice should also. It shouldn't be as simple as "pray you roll well."

Lethality - Shadowrunning is a deadly business. In the last half of the twenty-first century, the human body is a frail and nearly-obsolete anachronism. Deckers cut through the Matrix at the speed of light with their minds, Mages call the powers of the heavens down to the earth, Street Samurai can kill a man before he knows what hit him, but they can all be taken down by a punk with a lucky shot. The human body is still frail and shit happens. And though near-deadly wounds are common, mankind's innovation has found ways around them. Cybernetics, bioware, nanotechnology. Build a better runner. The reason why the future of these technologies are so bright is because what nature gave us falls short much of the time. The game mechanics need to remain lethal, to remind runners they operate in a dangerous world, and that lack of planning or losing one's cool likely means death. And because in a lethal world, the siren's call of technological replacement is seductive.

To me, if the rules reflect and stress those three points, you can play with the rest all you want.

[Eyeless Blond]

Those are good, but I'd add a couple more:

Rarity of Magic - Magic in Shadowrun, as was put elsewhere, is the great equalizer. Megacorporations rule the world, and have cash resources that can stagger the mind, but the rarity and uniqueness of magic, its incapability to be mass-produced, gives the shadowrunner, if not an advantage, then at least the illusion that he has one. Magic should never be as common as a +1 sword in D&D; this means that, for the sake of the setting, magic items usable by PCs should either not exist or be inconsequential enough that not every megacorp on Earth will have equipped their guards with it. At the same time, it should be present and have such a significant impact on every aspect of the game world.

"Small fish: meet big fish. Big fish: meet lunch." - No matter how big the runners get, there should always be bigger fish out there. This applies especially if you're on a street level campaign, but no matter the level you're at there should always be some sort of power that your runners must walk small around. This kinda ties in with Lethality above, but kinda needs its own bullet point, because a consequence of this is that there will--and should be--some levels of power that are just beyond what a character can reach. This means things like megacorporations, large secret (preferably oppressive) government organizations, high-Force free spirits, Great Dragons, and, even (though I gag to say it) Immortal Elves. As to that last one though, I wouldn't really mind that much if all of them developed some sort of really painful disease and died horribly, slowly, and alone. :grr:

[SR4-WTF?]

Mystery - What are in the shadows? Who is to know. There needs to be a web of rules for discovery and thwarting discovery of identity. How does the Small Fish keep from becoming lunch? He has to cover the tracks made in the Legwork and during the run execution. But the threat of discovery also has to be there, and it all needs several levels of scaling. The bigger splash you made, the more effort the Big Fish will put into discovery, the more effort the runners need to put into thwarting. Likewise, and this is really a tie-in to Legwork, the runners must have a complex set of options for detecting themselves.

[Penta]

Something I also add, though I imagine I can set off a debate:

Relevance - This is something I find essential. I remember reading ShadowBeat, London, and similar SR1-SR2 era books. I started with SR in about, oh, 1994-95. It had...zero relevance to me.

I'm going to be very oppositional to stuff I've heard here.

Forget the 80s. The 80s are dead.

Most players who might have entered SR since SR3 probably can't even *remember* the 80s very well. I can't, and I was born in 1983.

It has no relevance. Like a game based off of themes from the 1970s.

If all SR gaming must have 'throwback' characteristics, which I suppose is inevitable...Let the throwback be to, at most, the early 90s. Preferably the mid-90s.

Grunge. Nirvana. Alanis Morisette. A lot of people rediscovering just what it meant to be on the edge of technology.

Corporations not as independent actors (as much as they were in the 80s), but increasingly forced to cede power to governments and NGOs. That point where a lot of things seemed bright, but we had our first hints of darkness on the horizon.

(We can't abandon the idea of the extraterritorial megacorp, granted, but we can dial it back.)

As much as those who are 25-30 might have fond memories of the big hair 80s...

I don't. I don't even remember them.

[Kagetenshi]

Mystery is a big one. In my opinion a lot of this has already been lost in 3rd edition since FanPro took over—I'm sick and tired of knowing the answer. It started even before, come to think of it: Renraku Arcology: Shutdown was weaker than it could have been, in my opinion, because it was too free with information. Quite frankly, I'm iffy with Deus having been spelled out in the GM information section—having him in the in-character portions was just an awful choice. If something absolutely needs to be spelled out, an approach like Denver, with three completely different spelled-out items for each mystery, is far superior. Then when Brainscan came along and spelled out Deus' motivations…

Governments. This is another thing we've been seeing in SR3 under FanPro that needs to be reversed and badly. We need governments to leave the picture and fast. They're starting to become non-negligible, actually worthy of notice by the Big Ten and the corporate court. UCAS citizens (for example) should be second-rate citizens behind Ares citizens, Shiawase citizens, etc. etc. etc. The corps are having their power as independent actors reduced, and that to me is unacceptable.

Actually, I just read Penta's post, and it pretty much sums up everything I disagree with. For reference, I was born in 1985, so the "we're too young for it to be relevant" argument doesn't hold much water.

More if and when I think of it.

~J

[Ol' Scratch]

[SpasticTeapot]

[NeoJudas]

[Kagetenshi]

[Penta]

That's the thing, Kage.

On the federal level, government during Prohibition was the cleanest it had ever been, and would only get better as time went on.

It was state and local governments who were corrupt as hell. But the federal government was clean.

[Kagetenshi]

I wouldn't call a government that would let prohibition hit the lawbooks, much less become a constitutional amendment, "clean". Regardless, it's the local governments of that era that I'm looking to as my model of the Shadowrun world.

~J

[Penta]

I meant clean as "not being bought and sold".

Not smart.

Also, prohibition was a popular effort, pushed on by the populace.

(The whys and wherefores can take up a library.)

Next:

Yes, but you're referring to *national* governments.

There are, also, massive differences between the national and state/local governments back then.

These matter when projecting into any 21st-century context.

• Bureaucracy - I can't emphasize this enough. In the 20s and 30s, most state governments (and just about every local government) were part-time institutions. There basically was no bureaucracy. A professional government worker was an oxymoron. The idea of the civil service hadn't really come into fashion. Not so at the federal level. There, government had become professionalized since the 1880s, with the civil service as we know it basically set (reforms have come about periodically, but they hardly touch much), complemented by legislators whom, unlike their state counterparts, were full-time legislators. Add on the first appearance of the oversight units (The GAO was founded in 1921), and corruption was very difficult in the federal sphere. (Among the civil service, which is what matters. Political appointees have always been presumed dirty until the appearance of, and usually regardless of, proof to the contrary, and thus have no real power beyond what the civil servants *allow* them to exercise. Piss off the civil service, and the political appointee can be left bleeding on the floor of the halls of power.)
• Next, the end of the Machines. Yeah, this can be debated. However, after 1920, they went downhill quick. By the 70s, they were gone, and are very unlikely to come back. The machines were key to the corruption of the Prohibition era; However, they never got beyond city or, at most, state politics.

Does that mean there's no corruption at the federal level? Nope.

Teapot Dome is a great example of it.

But that was the work of political appointees. After Watergate, they hardly have the freedom to maneuver that they did in Harding's administration.

[hermit]

[Penta]

I think most would be too much, too.

For every corrupt religious fanatic, there are usually 9 non-corrupt ones.

It's the only way the corrupt ones get anywhere.

(And re Prohibition: It really did seem like a Good Idea At The Time. In retrospect, we know it was a bad one, but how were they to know that?

If you fault em, it's more appropriate to fault em after a few years of it when it should have been clear (and, actually, was to even a lot of prohibition supporters) that the effort was a failure, but wasn't stopped. Say, after 1924.)

[Wireknight]

1. Amorality
What I like about Shadowrun is that it has fantasy and cyberpunk elements, but is at its core a crime drama, and the default character, the shadowrunner, is the criminal. Attempts have been made through every system's evolution to reward good deeds and punish evil ones, in adventures and in reward mechanics, but at the end of the week, your character has probably gotten people they don't know fired, killed working stiffs who happened to get their paycheck through work as cops and guards, and, if they're a magician with elemental manipulation spells, broken the Geneva convention. Fireball sticks to kids. Your character might try and do good deeds to offset the fact that they make their living through amoral (or even immoral) acts, but in an amoral world that reflects our own, it's how well you play your character, not how good you play them, that really counts.

2. Danger
Everyone bleeds. Injury is something to be worried about. Even if your character is the toughest bastard that cybertechnology, bioware, regular exercise, and handfuls of steroids can produce, a bullet to the head isn't something you can shrug off. You need armor, because you are still, at the core, a fragile being of flesh and blood. Magic makes this even more true. Even if you've replaced every inch of your surface area with nigh-impenetrable armored cybernetics, a well-placed manabolt can drop you as easy as a strung-out chiphead. You need to be careful. Wear as much armor as you can get away with given the climate, the social norms, and jurisdictional laws. Keep magical backup around. Be paranoid, be prepared, because you are in danger.

3. Limited Suspension of Disbelief
Yes, there is magic in the world. Given this as a fact, a great deal of suspension of disbelief is possible. You should not, however, have to regularly tell yourself "it's just a game". People can't lift trucks over their heads, magic can't alter time/space, and all technology is on some level a plausible evolution of technological advancements, real and predicted, of the real world. Why can't you have a micro-fusion-powered gun that shoots pellets of antimatter? No one would develop something like that, and even if they did, it's so far beyond current technology that it'd seem like having a computer in a Wild West setting. Why aren't there flying cars? Have you seen how people drive when they only have two dimensions to worry about? The medical and insurance industries would fall apart. Shadowrun is fantastic, yes. It is not, however, fantasy.

[Bomber]

OMG - rational, mature, non-combative debate!

I can die happy!

Insert flaming after :D

[Penta]

Everybody kill Bomber!

Bomber: Don't encourage em.

[SR4-WTF?]

I always have seen SR era corporations and governments in a roughly equal strength stalemate. The power balance change coming about because of the combination of outsourcing of civil servants (Lonestar for example), global companies that are currently in the power range of the weakest countries continuing to increase in size, and the widespread turmoil created by URGE and the Crash.

As Penta pointed out the civil service is relied apon by elected officals and the top layer of bueracrates they appoint to actually run government. If the civil service becomes largely corporation run the corporation could use that conflict of interests to make it a much more corp friendly world.

As a result governments would be hardpressed to assert the true extent of their true powers over corps within the government's jurisdiction. For example few people in NA realise that they don't actualy own the land they think they do. It is closer to say all land is on permanent lease from the government. But if a 6th world government takes full action based on that against a large corporation the corporation is big enough, and enough safe harbours outside the country, and enough resources to hit back at the government hard. Or at least ruin whatever career and life the uppity political leader(s) formerly had.

On the flip side corporations must still give some leeway to governments because their populations, for democracies, and/or militaries still give a power base to back a semblance of judicial systems. Plus the governments also perform a service for the corporations, to maintain stability it markets they operate in.

[Penta]

Actually, that's something I meant to address.

Allowing for how *unlikely* so many things like LS is...

Contracting out has only happened *at city levels*, maybe state levels. There it is actually realistic: Towns contract for police services all the time, usually to the state police or other municipalities. States don't usually contract out functions like that, and Seattle is sort of weird, and we've never heard much of anything about the states otherwise.

In our case, we're concerned here with national governments.

Those, my friends, have very little outsourcing. The civil service still lives.

There's still the FBI, still CIA, still all the agencies we know and love in the Federal Government.

There can never be outsourcing of federal functions in any significant way.

Why? Because once you outsource those, *you lose the purpose of your existence*.

The way I see it:

The power of corporations has had a sort of wave effect.

From 2001 to 2030 or so, governments ruled.

From 2030 to 2060, corps more or less held the edge.

2060 to 2070, stalemate.

2070 on, even including the sustem failure? Government power is on a slight upswing.

[SR4-WTF?]

For years now there have been state prisons that are corp run. Also look at all the private service companies the US military is using right in the theatre of war.

[Demonseed Elite]

I think suggestions like Relevance and probably even Mystery fall mostly under setting, as I'm not sure what kind of mechanics go along with them. I'm not sure I agree with Relevance, but I do agree with the idea of Mystery. I will say that it is tough though, when writing current material, to include the unanswered questions. Like Deus, that was mentioned. I mean, we couldn't really leave the Arcology sitting shut down in Seattle without addressing and dealing with it again at some point.

I very much agree with WK's Amorality suggestion though, and that's one I'd add to my own list. Mechanically, there shouldn't be any attempt to guide shadowrunners towards being heroes; they are anti-heroes. Sometimes they do some good things, but they do a lot of bad things too. It's the nature of their work and part of the theme of living the SINless life.

[hermit]

Okay, now here goes my list (apart from what has already been said):

- Twisted Fantasy
Dragons owning multinationals they bought with their hoard. Elves setting up fantasy-tinged fascist regimes. Orc underclass workers demonstrating for civil rights. freaky creatures and spirits applying for recognition/citizenship. The way Shadowrun takes traditional fantasy cliches and gives them a modern, real-world twist has always made the setting enjoyable and fun for me. It's realistic, in a way, but with enough fantastic elements to becoem a unique and fantastic setting nonetheless, and remains slihtly tongue-in-cheek even when adressing real-world issues (in a surprisingly mature and neutral tone, too).

- No Morality
Unlike AD&D or most other RPGs, the SR world doesn't judge the charactrs by their actions. There is no alignment, no classes, no superior entities (like D&D gods) who tell you that you'Re evil/good and have to act accordingly or face some sort of punishment. It gives the player much more freedom to make decisions for themselves, and doesn't force them into some sort of premade moral frame (Paladines do this, thieves do that).

[tjn]

In regards to Shadowrun's morality, or lack thereof, I personally have always appreciated the irony of the game's PC's being the only ones that give a damn. And they're criminals, through and through.

In a world of infinite grey, where the only motive for the corperations is profit and where the government is jaded and unresponsive to the concerns of the average chummer, the only person who strives to make the world a better place is the same person who breaks the law as a profession.

That's not to say every Shadowrunner is Robin Hood; the point is they have the choice. They can just as easily posion a shipment of Snak-Time treats destined for elementry kids for their payoff, or they could steal the line from our good buddy Jean Reno: "no women, no children."

But it comes down to their choice because no one else will and because of that, it makes them unique and intriguing characters to play.

[hermit]

Speak for yourself, tjn Of my major characters, only one tries to make the world a better place, and that only in the small frame of his 'hood. The Rigger nly cares for herself and about four other people, and the terrorist ... well, is a terrorosit. He wants revenge, nothing else, and will smash anyone who stands in his way (or die trying).

the Rigger currently is engaged in Brainscan, though, working for the good side, and constantly bitching to the rest of the team about how little that nets and how much more she loses than gains. She's pretty close to just walking away, the only reason she hasn't is because she's got some personal matters to see to with Deus now.

[SR4-WTF?]