Eighties flavour: yes or no? Options

[Euchrid]

As anyone who's had a look at a 1st or 2nd ed. ShadowRun sourcebook will know, the early days of the game were very heavily influenced by the eighties, even once the decade was over and the nineties had begun. Big hair, bangles, mokawks and neon everywhere.

My question is thus: does this continue on to the present day in your ShadowRun game? At least one other member of our group is a big fan of the eighties, and we both enjoy injecting the flavour of the period into the game. Obviously it doesn't have a big impact on the game, and we understand (if only grudgingly) why the newer art does go in that direction, but it's our game and that's how we enjoy playing it.

I was just wondering if anyone else flavoured their games in the same way, or in some other similar fashion?

[Supercilious]

I always have a lot of a disco-clubs in my games. Nothing like a shootout in a disco.

[Nyxll]

I think that the bangles and bands were something that shaman's typically were drawn with.

The makeup, mohawks and glowing hair are more from the punk/goth genre rather than the 80's. 80's was neon colours and really big hair or a mullet.

I try and keep the genre, more 90's than 80's. I had glowing/transmorphic nanite tattoos back in 94.

[Wounded Ronin]

For me, SR is all about the eighties. Whether I'm a player or a GM, I try to maintain that 80s flavor which I feel is essential to the game. To this effect, as a player, I've run the following characters:

1.) A troll with a big sword who was a pretty clear knock-off of Conan from Conan The Barbarian.
2.) A ninja named Sho Kosugi who was exactly like Sho Kosugi in his many 1980s ninja films.
3.) More than one paramilitary dude with a big mullet based on an amalgam of Snake from Escape from New York and Snake from Metal Gear who was in turn just a rip-off of the original Escape from New York Snake. So, mullets and automatic fire abound, Golan-Globus style, heh.

As a GM, I've often included many elements to ensure the 80s-ness of my game. These elements include,

1.) Ninjas. I've had so many ninjas for years that eventually some of my players got tired of them and I had to change them up a bit.
2.) Evil Japanese corporations who draw their sorcerous financial buy-out powers from the blood of sacrificed Midwestern auto workers. Well, not really. But I always would emphasize/ham up the importance of the Japanacorps in my game for more of an 80s feel.
3.) Japanese culture shtick, in the tradition of Eric Van Lustbader and Showdown in Little Tokyo. Tatami mats and tea whenever possible. Hell, I even had Nicolas Linnear as a NPC once.
4.) Tall looming buildings with neon lights, like in Blade Runner. Also used imagery concepts from the Redsun 2020 Deus Ex mod, which basically captured that same look/feel.

So in the end, I feel that 80s ness is one of the huge staples of Shadowrun. Shadowrun without the 80s isn't really Shadowrun at all.

[SFEley]

No mohawks for me. I could stand just about everything in old SR except for the mohawks.

[Wounded Ronin]

[FrostyNSO]

I would say WR just about summed it up...

[nezumi]

Hmm... Yes, I draw on what I remember from the 80's.

The smurfs, Voltron, my little pony, teddy ruxpin and that show with the little green underwater creatures with snorkels. Oh yes, and sea monkies. Gotta love the sea monkies.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to enjoy the 80's like some dinosaurs wiser people here, so it reflects more 90's stuff (and grunge/punk). Not so many mohawks, but I try to put at least a few grungy, overstuffed bars full of punks in leathers and studs and maybe one or two Harrison Ford look-alikes.

[Supercilious]

Solid Snake was more of a stealth badass, than a kick your ass with a panther cannon kinda badass.

[kobura]

Certain things hold up for me: Razorgals, joygirls, weird gangs, ninja clones, smart dolphins. A lot of my games tend to land on the side of 80's action flicks like Cobra, Commando, Delta Force, Megaforce (heh remember that one?). But then again, I'm a child of the 80's. So cultural references are a given. I had one run where the team attracted the attention of a little boy that thought they were like the cartoon characters from "Captain Commando" (clearly a rip-off of G.I. Joe).

I noticed the sourcebooks have moved away from the 80's kitsch though, so I roll with it. I don't see the future as being that bleak either. But you can't escape that 80's feel of wastelands like Mad Max (That's what I think of when I think of gangers) and a sprawl like (Bladerunner).

[Slacker]

Alot of my games/characters have influences from the cheesy movies of the 80's. A couple that come immediately to mind would be "Bruce Leroy" from the movie "The Last Dragon." (Anybody remember that one?)
And both the story and characters from "Big Trouble in Little China." I've played Jack Burton in several games :)

[hahnsoo]

[Snow_Fox]

Eighties fashion for women were big big hair, and either black lace (early madonna look) or BIG shoulder pads. Trust me guys. I lived through it.
Mullets are more southern, you can still see them not, but for guys hair look at Mel Gibson in the Leathal Weapon Movies. big hair all round, not just the mullet in the back. Or Michael Beck in Xanadu.

[Kagetenshi]

The '80s are neat, but I prefer the '70s.

My Shadowrunners gonna wind up in a Disco Inferno!!!

~J

[Angelone]

[hyzmarca]

[Sabosect]

Meh. The games I play are more a mixture of eras. You have the 80s-style buildings and neon sharing space with people who run the gamut from the 1950s to the 2000s. Then again, with my games, you can't really trust anyone in the Shadows. Hell, one of my own characters, Nerlata, would gladly shoot someone in the head for a measly 750 nuyen plus ammunition prices.

So, yeah, it's dark and gritty.

[Shrapnel]

When I think of punks and gangers in Shadowrun, I always tend to stick with the 80's style punks.

I don't care much for today's style of gangs, even though a "Shadowrun: San Andreas" does sound interesting... :D

I think some of the greatest inspirations for punks in my games have been movies like Death Wish 2, with Charles Bronson. That movie had some of the greatest 80's punks I have ever seen. The neon pink wrap-around sunglasses are definitely a nice touch. 8)

I think movies like that tend to set the mood for me. Gangs pretty much rule the sprawl, and the police are powerless to fight them. People are so scared of the gangs, and tired of the police doing nothing, that they tend to look up to the vigilantes who protect them.

I personally like the idea of a world so gritty that your average citizen trusts and respects a shadowrunner more than they do the local police.

Of course, what the poor pedestrians don't know is that the vigilante who just saved them is even more dangerous than the gangers could ever be... ;)

[imperialus]

one location I've used in previous games is a bar called 1984, complete with posters of George Orwells famous cover, the Dead Kennedys playing in the background and once a week they would show either Red Dawn, Mad Max, or the Warriors on a 50 inch screens.

[Euchrid]

To be perfectly honest (and this is a controversial opinion, I know) I feel that cyberpunk is quintessentially eighties in flavour, especially in terms of the fear of expanding corporations taking over the world. Anything else is post-cyberpunk.

[Wounded Ronin]

[Erebus]

[Nikoli]

hehe, always loved Bruce Leroy's sensei..
"A true master would have used this to hold up his belt."

[Fresno Bob]

I run my games like the Streets of Rage series. The PCs pound on wave after endless wave of guys with palette-switched mohawks.

[TokenFemme]

Ahh yes, punk and glam and goth and Max Headroom! Although I am not sure when it happened, the games I've run and been in have lost that 80's touch in favor of more recent influences, as well as a lot of surrealism.

Some of this I am sure can be blamed on my addiction to Takashi Miike, yakuza movies, and most specifically Asian horror films...but then, most of my games are pretty heavy on the "Ugh" factor. Those, on top of my personal distaste for things like 80's mohawks have sort of pushed the better or some might say worse traits of the 80's by the wayside. For me, at least, it seems to adapt well and still keep its theme, although that could be debated by others.

Then again, 80's camp is so much fun.
Starts working on a "LoPan" style antagonist.