This is not a technology-thread!

What do you do, when or present contradicts Shadowruns history?

There was no Shiawase Decision, no 10 Minutes War between Israel and Libya and no great Quake in NY! On the other hand many global events did hapen that were naturally not mentioned in SR history. So what?

Do you just ignore it, having a blind spot for historical inconsistencies in your game?
Do you play SR as a game with alternate history?
Do you adjust the history of your game world to RL?
Do you simply just say, the Crash got history records mixed up, so nobody realy knows?
Does anybody care in your games?

This is not a technology-thread!

I was a toss up between ignore the inconsistencies (it's a game after all) and adjust SR (it's a game but it does try to be realistic). So if it isn't to hard to adjust I do, if it is I just ignore the inconsistency in favor of canon.

I ignore them. A lot of people today (excluding the fine educated folks on this board) don't give a crap about history. I love it, but for a lot of folks they are pretty ignorant of it. I'm pretty sure that unless another World War pops up between now and 65 years from now most people in the future will not even know much about anything of today's history. If it bugs people that much just push all of the "big" events like Seretech and the Great Ghost dance twenty years into the future. There has been twenty years in game from SR1 to SR4, and you can mash a lot of events together if you need to.

The "Shiawase Decision" happened in 2005, when civillians who had been abandoned by their government and corporate aid organizations took weaponry from an abandoned National Guard Armory and held up trucks carrying medical supplies and redirected them into the New Orleans Containment Zone.

It's not a huge difference actually, but I prefer to refer to those real life events rather than to the similar Shadowrun events when I run games.

-Frank

Me, I try to dajust SR history. But not many a PC/NPC will know. I try to include all RL events in the timeline and I tend to postpone all major SR-Events, that didn´t happen. Everything until 2011 is quiet easily postponed. I allso do keep the history murcy befor 2029 and attribute all un-fixable inconsistencies to the Crash!

I like Franks take on the problem however and may apply it to minor events in my gaming.

Real life bends to fit the game. In my world, widespread wireless came and went, ushered out the door by growing interference from city electronics and ever-increasing bandwidth demands. 2001 was a pretty ordinary year in New York City, and even if it hadn't been last year would have erased the memory. Warren Burger doesn't retire until 1994. Food riots broke out in New York City in '99.

So on and soforth.

~J

I use the "divergent history" approach. The SR world was our world until about the mid 90's, when some different things started to happen. Things that are not covered in sourcebooks usually default to the way they are (or maybe will be) IRL.

Not just the mid-90s—as I mentioned, things like Warren Burger's lack of retirement started the change as early as 1986.

Note that that's before the release of SR1, so it's pretty clear which direction the original creators intended.

~J

My version is basically this:
"Some things happened differently in SR's version of the past 20 years, but don't worry, we'll get back on track with the Awakening in 2012."

i'd like to know just what the three people who voted for changing RL to match SR are up to.

*Hides biolab behind back, whistles innocently*

~J

I make no adjustments. Canon is canon. Unless the later editions tries to change history, then the latest history wins.

SR's history is SR's history. It's not like you go back and remake The Jetsons because we don't have flying cars yet.

Well, yes. However, it appears that for the most part the world converged against, with differences that are only minor (would I be saying this if we had more information on the real people who were replaced with IEs in Shadowrun? It makes no difference, as we don't) until the mid-80s.

~J

I've always viewed Shadowrun as an alternate history of earth.

It's a fictional world to me, and is just one of millions of billions of possibilites scattered around the universe. I always look at gaming as peeling back this veil between worlds in a way, telling the stories of these places we will never see.

Someone else said it a lot better than me, though.

"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...."


And my campaigns are alternate to the alternate. I'm not beholden to cannon source material at all. I take what I like and simply dilute the rest into what I need or feel like including.

For example, I'm about to usher in SR4. If you don't like off-cannon, please stop reading now.

Dunky gets elected Prez. At the same time the Matrix is clogged with election night coverage, Deus breaks out in the middle of the Stock Exchange. Milliseconds later, Alamos 20k detonates a nuke inside the Hoover Dam, flooding the valley below and killing several thousand metahumans. Boom, Matrix crash.

Dunky does not die, instead he gets to be a president whose first real order wll be the issuance of martial law. His entire presidency will be clouded with the conspiracys of "He did it! He's a Dragon! you know them!"

Eh, I have fun.

I have long since realized that I, for reasons I do not yet understand, have somehow become the victim of some sort of virtual reality experiment in which a NEW reality is created around me and does not follow the official FASA/FanPro canon. I only have to survive another forty or fifty years until a group of shadowrunners manage to get me out and I achieve my magical/decker/street sam potential and I realize that everything FASA wrote (Deus bless their souls) was completely correct and perfect.

"slight derail warning" It would be nice if a book was written about how the UCAS would have been in the Dragon's Claws. The way they off'd him seems to be a panic solution to a "Ops, we didnt expect him to win", but still they have created alot of things around and because of the off'ing.

/derail off

I have always seen SR history as an alternative timeline. I must admit some part of me is looking forward to 2011 to see if it happens (though I know it wont). But who knows, in this waste supposively unlimited universe of ours, there might just be a place like SR. Chances are, that if you look far enough away, there is!

@nezumi
So, you noticed too? Great, I allways thought I´m allone! Thats ...
Wait, maybe your one of them trying to make me spill the beans about my escape plan ... for everybody *enter insane loughing here*

@PiXeL01
There obviously has to be a big sr-fan-party on Dec. 24. 2011!

Edit: Probably in a Bullet train passing Mt. Fuji

Whats up with people?! "adjusting RL to SR" just surpassed "adjusting SR to RL"
Could anyone of these voters please explaine? Or maybe, I just sould stop sabotagig my own polls by posting silly answers
Well, at least noone isn´t playing SR in this poll!

I'm wondering who thinks they were the crash of '29.

Yea, yea, hack me for that typo, I probably deserve it.

I hope, what I meant by this, becomes clear in the entry massage!

Is ther any way to correct that typo? Nothing? Sad, would be great to fake fantastic polls! "Its true, 80% voted, they would rather play sailermoon, if not for the costly costumes."

Edit: Actualy the "t" in "It" was eaten by the crash virus! Don´t ask me which one, I realy can´t tell all of my children apart

Well I voted adjust real life ot SR, and here's my reason. I live in a delusional fantasy world of my own making. I live and act as if the Shadowrun history were true, and ignore things that have happened in RL that don't coincide.

For example, I am not particuarly concerned with terrorism, etc. I am concerned about secret corporate rulership of the planet. I don't concern myself with the US government overmuch, because I know the country will collapse soon enough. And I am actively planning for the awakening in 6 years, and the crash afterwards.

I have invested in the real life corporation Aztechnology.

But this is because I live in my own delusional fantasy world.

By the way, Stop adding "I don't Play SR" in polls. People who don't paly SR don't come to these forums.

That isn't entirely true. We've had at least one person who has quite clearly stated that they don't play Shadowrun, but who ended up hanging around the forums for some time and is a household name.

~J

I try to adjust RL to SR.

According to my SR characters history, i'm a lot less.... frustrated than i am in RL

kage, you mean Steve Kenson?

Alternate history my German friend.