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FanGirl
Yeah, why can't there be more games about feelings and fluffy bunnies? nyahnyah.gif

But seriously, why do people persist in saying that action movie-esque elements are incompatible with the very concept of Shadowrun, especially since SR4 recommends ways to infuse games with a "cinematic style?" (p. 69)
emo samurai
OOOH... I get it. The reason they spend several books detailing expensive equipment is so you never buy it!!!
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (emo samurai)
A lot of people seem like hardasses. It really annoys me.

You probably think I'm a hardass because I post a lot about ways to kill the PCs. Well, I only feel the way I do today because of several years of GMing Shadowrun. I found out that once a player accumulated a certain amount of karma pool and certain items of equipment is was very very hard to create challenging scenarios for that character while still adhereing to what the books defined as being "average" and "professional", on what equipment was widely available and what wasn't, and so forth.

I had an episode where I had wanted one very powerful character to retire but the player liked powerful characters and so there was a lot of friction between us.

At this present moment, after years of GMing, I don't feel up to GMing anymore. There was a time when some people told me that I was the best SR GM, but what I realized years later is that while I can run a beginning game OK things really fall apart with high power levels unless I do torturous things like throw 100 physads against the PCs and make dice rolls for each one. The high-end player character power levels totally destroyed the enjoyment of the game for me.

So I decided that leading the players nicely along and having them win every time and saving them when the chips are down just dosen't end well. Unless you put people up against enough challenge and danger that they need to be burning that karma and not accumulating it to the level of 15 pool dice, unless you demand tactical meticulousness, and unless you let the dice fall where they may, the game quickly becomes meaningless.

It says somewhere in SR 3 that PCs must "sweat" for each karma point earned. I think I finally understand what that means.

As a player, I lived by that also. I would make weak characters to better challenge myself.
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (emo samurai)
OOOH... I get it. The reason they spend several books detailing expensive equipment is so you never buy it!!!

Depends on the Availability, dosen't it?

However, your enemies can use it against you.
TheQuestionMan
Good day Chummers, I like been Game Mastering Shadowrun off and on for 15 years Gaming, but have only been a Player for a grand total of 12 Sessions.

I want to play as a Professional Shadowrunner. Taking jobs to survive and doing the occasional probono



More later

QM
emo samurai
Of COURSE the enemies use that stuff. And I wasn't talking about you; it's just that it seems ridiculous that you'll be paying professional criminals who end up netting you millions barely above poverty level, making sure they never buy cyberware outside of character creation.
fistandantilus4.0
QUOTE (emo samurai)
If K can have a sam with 9 agility and synaptics 3, then I get a cyberzombie with steampunk cyberlimbs and a blood spirit as a hidden life thingie. That's only fair.

Yes you can. I'm not trying to harp on you or call you a cheater. It's just my POV, or I guess I should say my mind set. Like I said, we do have games with characters taht can be pretty out there. We have removed the skills cap in SR4 and made the skills even more expensive after 6 to compensate.

I think a big part of it is that I'm the kind of guy that likes to start at first level and build up to 20th (or whatever). So I'd be fine with it if a player started out as a 'standard' runner, built up his character, got worked over ,and due to some hefty favors , got built in to a cyberzombie with a blood spirit in it. But the character would have to act like a cyber zombie. He wouldn't be himself with just a shit load more cyber. He would be a cyberzombie. It's just different tastes.
emo samurai
The cyberzombie will be very cyberzombie-like even before he gets put back in the body. And I don't take insults as insults; they're just excuses to escalate the insanity until people's minds break and they abandon all pretenses of normality.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (FanGirl)
But seriously, why do people persist in saying that action movie-esque elements are incompatible with the very concept of Shadowrun, especially since SR4 recommends ways to infuse games with a "cinematic style?" (p. 69)

FWIW, some of us believe that SR4 is incompatible with the very concept of Shadowrun.

~J
hyzmarca
That being said, some people do like to go overbaord every now and then.

Case in point: The Inhumanoids.

Shadowrun, all things being equal, lends itself to absurdity just as much as it lends itself to soul-crushing hopelessness. There's a cliche 80's rocker archetype in one of the editions and there are ninjas. And Drop Bears. You can't get much more absurd than that.
Dog
Anybody notice the debate going on between a two guys calling themselves "Samurai" and "Ronin?"
emo samurai
Holy shit, you're right. And the thing is, the ronin's more of a rules purist than the samurai. That's really weird.
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (emo samurai)
Holy shit, you're right. And the thing is, the ronin's more of a rules purist than the samurai. That's really weird.

Well, "Wounded Ronin" is actually based on the cover of a film that was released in the US as "Samurai Rebellion", which had a black and white photo of a samurai with lots of orange blood painted on. In the movie a samurai decided to rebel against his decadent overlord for being a meanie and deviating from traditional values. Seen in the context of that film you could interpret some kind of championship of rules purism.

emo samurai
Hmmm... And according to the Hagakure, going ronin wasn't necessarily a bad thing as long as it didn't happen because you were caught raping kittens; it allowed you to wander and learn about the world. Ditto about being wounded. Then again, it was sort of okay to be emo.

And what did the wounded ronin mean by deviating from traditionalism? Was it cracking a smile in court every so often, or was it the aforementioned raping of kittens?
FanGirl
QUOTE (emo samurai)
Holy shit, you're right. And the thing is, the ronin's more of a rules purist than the samurai. That's really weird.

And the "samurai" is Chinese-American, too! wink.gif
emo samurai
Actually, I'm just Chinese. My ancestors will hunt you down for that.
eidolon
Zhende ma? Hui shuo putong hua ma?

And ditto Kage.
emo samurai
Shi, wo shi zhong guo ren, wo cong Harbin lai. Keshi, wo jui hui shuo yi dianr zhong wen.

Here's a little bit of English so that I don't lose anybody. And this isn't a translation of what I just wrote.
FanGirl
QUOTE (emo samurai)
Actually, I'm just Chinese. My ancestors will hunt you down for that.

Oh, I'm sorry. I wasn't sure how exactly you identified yourself, so I went for the most PC route.

So when can I expect your ancestors to break down my door and rip me to shreds or whatever? Will it be at a specific time, like just after sundown, or does the supernatural vengeance work more like a cable service--"Please wait between the hours of 3 and 5 PM for your disemboweling?" If I offered them some hell money, would they leave me alone? If so, how much should I offer?
Dog
Lost souls will haunt you at midnight, 12:30 if you're in Newfoundland...

(I lost my copy of Hagakure. Thanks for the reminder. sarcastic.gif )

Since this hijacking is kind of my fault...
I've mentioned in a few other threads that the absurdity that Hyzmarca mentioned is overlooked in later Shadowrun products, and that I miss it. Does anyone feel that their options on character background have become more ...limited... as the game tries to take itself more seriously?

And just to vent an opinion: RPG's themselves are generally ridiculous and I don't usually get why anyone wants them to be realistic. If I wanted realistic street life, I'd go back to my job working with the homeless. If I wanted realistic combat, I would've joined the army when I had the chance. But that's just me, it doesn't mean that others shouldn't do what they enjoy. Me, I prefer escapism.
Quix
Amen to escapism. notworthy.gif
Kanada Ten
Crash 2.0 basically give you the ability to make anyone a runner. One day you could be Daimen Knight's biggest rival or a top pilot with JapanAIR and the next you're SINless and in the gutter. Or worse arrested and slapped with a criminal SIN.
emo samurai
Just do what I do: whatever I want. If your GM doesn't allow it, he's a dick.
Kanada Ten
QUOTE (emo samurai)
Just do what I do: whatever I want. If your GM doesn't allow it, he's a dick.

Which has nothing to do with whether he's a good GM or not.
emo samurai
Yes... it... DOES!!!

Okay, good point. But if you limit things because they're too "implausible," then you make him a boring character in an interesting universe. He'll just be a smuggler, or a gangster with 3 skill in guns, or whatever; your characters will be smuggling guns while Novatech is Thor shotting Art Dankwalther and Harlequin saves the world again. My point is if you make them mice among giants, then they tend to end up the same colored mice.
Kanada Ten
QUOTE (emo samurai)
Okay, good point. But if you limit things because they're too "implausible," then you make him a boring character in an interesting universe. He'll just be a smuggler, or a gangster with 3 skill in guns, or whatever; your characters will be smuggling guns while Novatech is Thor shotting Art Dankwalther and Harlequin saves the world again. My point is if you make them mice among giants, then they tend to end up the same colored mice.

A smuggler who slides cred to his sister in Simtown, because she can't find work. But he doesn't know a local gangster hooked her on beetles and all the money he sends goes to support his habit, not her or the baby - that suddenly arrives at his doorstep a years later looking for a home. But his girlfriend doesn't need another aggravation and kicks them both out on the streets.

... If you take the viewing lense and go to wide angle everything blurs and only the bright flashes reach your eyes. But if you zoom in, you'll see that the mice are not only all different colors and shapes and sizes, but that so are their ticks.

Look, my point is, sometimes a GM has an "inspiration" for a game. He comes to the players and says, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool to start out as Mafia soliders who have to work their way up?" Now this limits their backgrounds, it limits the ware they can take, the history they can have - but only in a very small way. And when they are in the heat of it, with characters that they've come to care about, the GM's ability to weave an engaging world becomes more important than whether Harlequin is the next caller, or their bondsman.

There's nothing wrong with any of it, really. I've had PCs with IE family, and PCs who wouldn't know a magic rock if it spoke to them (or survive a gun fight, even).
James McMurray
Mice can be interesting. You don't need ultramagepowerzord to be an interesting character, just personality.
emo samurai
The thing is, I need a blank sheet to draw anything I'd look at. I need to be able to make whatever I want; my background has to be what I choose.

[ Spoiler ]
eralston
Players generally only need one little hook for their character and they're in love. Like when a man sees a woman and loves her for her large, round....eyes...
James McMurray
QUOTE (emo samurai)
His life is centered around that fairy tale perfection meeting with the grim darkness of the future; to me, that's quite unique.

That's generally one of the first things I see people make when they want to "step away from the norm." smile.gif
Kanada Ten
Maybe I'm just getting old, but that's not exactly unique. Actually, it's practically cliche at this point. Besides [clash of ideal and reality] being the basis of about half of all runners ("I worked for Shiawase and thought we were a family, until I stumbled across..." or "I was a patriot, following orders without question, and then my government tried to eliminate me." and so on); but it's also an actual shadowland character from second edition: Taran Greenbrough. Poor guy disappeared somewhere after Denver. Not that there's anything wrong with that type, my first real character was a Former Paramedic fired for healing a non-contract while on the clock.
eralston
I like the gratuitous backstab background in so far that it creates purpose in a very succinct manner.

Overall, it's hard to craft a good reason to "home grown" shadowrunners. Most every shadowrunner who just up and decides to be one gets killed first thing.

Everyone is an ex-something, I divide them into categories:

1) Gordon Freemans: I was _____, but then _____ happened that caused me to take up a life of ________

2) The A-team: I've always done _____ and when something happened to cause that to end, I just kept doing it

Really no difference
emo samurai
Most of Shadowrun's centered around conflict; you either accept it and become a heartless mercenary, or you don't, and you become a tormented good guy.
eralston
Tormented good guys are kind of a drag. It's really hard to RP moody without crossing into really awful LARPing
Kagetenshi
I've always been a big fan of the backstab character background. For example, as far as I can tell my current character once test-drove advanced prototypes for Saeder-Krupp. From what I've gathered thus far her manager probably changed, and she didn't like the new one or the new policies or something and ran to Ares with a bunch of highly sensitive material.

Oh wait, you meant the corp doing the backstabbing smile.gif

~J
hyzmarca
QUOTE (eralston)
I like the gratuitous backstab background in so far that it creates purpose in a very succinct manner.

Overall, it's hard to craft a good reason to "home grown" shadowrunners. Most every shadowrunner who just up and decides to be one gets killed first thing.

I find it easy to create home grown Shadowrunners. Start with a SINless character growing up poor, have him join a gang at some point, have the gang get offered a job by some guy one day and slowly evolve away from being just a street gang and into something bigger. Have the gang's fixer contacts start hooking them up with real Johnsons for real work and [optionally] have the character split from the gang to to bigger and better things.
eralston
Well, with an assumed beachead in the streets, certainly it's easy to just say they were extraordinary enough to dinstinguish themselves; however, in the specific case of "powerful" or highly competent characters, they generally need a good reason to have access to superior resources and training.

Certainly you can have superior SINless people, but corps are just a lot more efficient at building competent killing machines.
Kanada Ten
Yeah, but the end of SR3 gave us plenty of "national" wars and displaced peoples that one can easily have NAN warriors who fled the Ute or Tsimshian rather than work for the enemy. There was also a few mercenary companies that went kablwee and then Surhand's paladins or the Seraphim from Cross.

One other thing on revenge motivated; the prevalence of hackers in 4 coupled with identity theft of today (and face shifting technology, DNA masking) one could easily be the target of a frame-up. Hackers will look for those who make plausible scapegoats - such as those with violent personalities (they just search around for your online order of lithium, for example) and then erase your alibi and plant the evidence. Sure you could hope that the mindprobe proves you innocent, but with memory modification technology a good prosecutor could knock it down. All the hacker needs to do is lure the mark to the scene of the crime and arrange for the police to catch him red-handed. Maybe the hacker even exaplins this to you as the sirens close in, he's gloating, but you manage to escape (perhaps burning edge) and run to the shadows for protection - and to track the fucker down.
emo samurai
QUOTE (James McMurray @ Apr 28 2006, 01:04 AM)
QUOTE (Strikes again/Ha-Ha-Ha)
His life is centered around that fairy tale perfection meeting with the grim darkness of the future; to me, that's quite unique.

That's generally one of the first things I see people make when they want to "step away from the norm." smile.gif

The thing is, though, Shen is almost literally a fairy-tale figure; his background isn't ex-something you'd commonly see in SR. I thought that would make him fun to play.

Plus, unlike most of the people you mention, he hasn't given up 100% on his ideals; he hasn't given up even 20% on them. He still believes in the humble glory of the individual life, just no in his ability to help people achieve that in his official capacity.
eralston
I suppose I could extend payback a bit, or comment on why I've never played a fairy tale (I seriously don't know anything about this Shen guy, emo. AND IM ME don't crap on this thread just to tell me)

No, I want to extend the reasons list, currently it's:
Pure monetary gain
revenge
being a fairy tale caught in a dystopic future (?)


Kanada Ten
Exoneration - Perhaps it's to escape personal guilt or just a guilty charge... (Examples: The Fugitive, Cane, The Shadow)

Freedom / Independence - Live free and die free or maybe just pick the jobs you do. (Examples: ?)

Status Quo - "I've always been a criminal, my father was a criminal, and his father was a criminal." (Examples: George W. Bush, The Kennedys, Gotti)

Fulfillment - "Killing is the only thing I know how to do." (Examples: Batman, Art Danthwalker)

Excitement - "The only time I feel alive." (Examples: Hatchetman, Brock Sampson, Hackers)
shadowfire
i play shadowrun because i'm a natural at espionage- at least mentally. i can think in those circles pretty easily. so unlike other games, i can use all that ability.
fistandantilus4.0
QUOTE (Kanada Ten)
A smuggler who slides cred to his sister in Simtown, because she can't find work. But he doesn't know a local gangster hooked her on beetles and all the money he sends goes to support his habit, not her or the baby - that suddenly arrives at his doorstep a years later looking for a home. But his girlfriend doesn't need another aggravation and kicks them both out on the streets.


K10, that was beautiful man.
emo samurai
These character concepts seem to be molded far too much by the social context; there's too much inertia in their backgrounds. "My father was a blah blah blah, I've always done blah blah blah, I'm on the street so someone in my family's in a gang/addicted to drugs/saddled with a kid." There's really no overriding conviction in most of their chracter concepts, and that annoys me. There's fear, greed, and ambition, but no real passion. Greed and ambition don't make you unique, and aren't real passions. Greed and ambition reduce you to numbers, and even if you become a big number, you can still be summed up by a number.
Kanada Ten
I could have put in "the passion" idealogy, but that's really just a variation on revenge, exoneration, or fulfillment.

The rest of your post is nonsense. Everything can be reduced to numbers.

[e] And saddled with a kid is fucking comedy gold every time. It allows the character to grow in any direction. They can become more dark, or open to the kid, or just try to "make things right".

Hell, social inertia makes the world go round. spin.gif

[e2] Oh, that reminds me of another background:

Dissociation - Whether the person is lost in a Shadowrunner Sim or programmed by p'fix, they run by design. "The chips made me do it!" (Examples: Cyberzombies, Meat Puppets)

Recognition - "I am the best!" (Examples: The Black Archer, Kane, The Gingerbread Man)
James McMurray
QUOTE (emo samurai)
The thing is, though, Shen is almost literally a fairy-tale figure; his background isn't ex-something you'd commonly see in SR. I thought that would make him fun to play.

Plus, unlike most of the people you mention, he hasn't given up 100% on his ideals; he hasn't given up even 20% on them. He still believes in the humble glory of the individual life, just no in his ability to help people achieve that in his official capacity.

Maybe I should have explained a bit more. "Ex-richboy who hates mommy and daddy's materialism and for <<insert as yet undetermined reason>> runs the shadows, but still holds to his idealism," is a fairly common archetype in my experience. Not as common as "I wanna cut people while being all angsty and honorable," but still not something that never happens.

Relation to royalty is also a fairly common theme in characters, albeit more in fantasy genres than sci-fi ones. Most people I've known to do it generally want it as a fallback escape hatch. Maybe the character doesn't want to rejoin his birthright, but if it became the only way to save his friends he would, be it by getting daddy's court wizard on his team, accessing the family funds, or coming meekly home and offering himself up in exchange for ___ for his friends. I don't know if that's something you've thought about, and it doesn't really matter because it's not a bad thing if handled properly.

Yours has some stuff to make him different than the rest, just like all the good ones do. But in the end he's just another one of the myriad non-infinite possibilities of general concepts highlighted by the possibly infinite small differences.

That doesn't mean he won't be fun to play though. smile.gif

Don't worry overly much about "can I make something nobody's seen before" and instead focus on "can I make something I want to play." Shen seems to fit that bill for you, so by all means just find the guy a reason to run and then let him start doing it. smile.gif
Dog
Wow. This has to be one of the most insightful RP discussions I've seen.

I'd like to point out the difference between the issue of background variety and what I guess one'd call power-level of the campaign. A cliche character is just a cutout, whether he's in a street-level protect-the-neighborhood campaign or a Harlequin/James-Bond save the world thing. A well-developed, original, creative character would make either kind of campaign better. My preference for the ridiculous components of the game is just a preference. I don't think it makes a superior game. Nor do I adhere to it. My friend is running a very gritty sort of minor mob-war game right now that I'm enjoying.
ronin3338
QUOTE (Kanada Ten @ Apr 28 2006, 07:43 PM)
Exoneration - Perhaps it's to escape personal guilt or just a guilty charge... (Examples: The Fugitive, Cane, The Shadow)

Freedom / Independence - Live free and die free or maybe just pick the jobs you do. (Examples: ?)

Status Quo - "I've always been a criminal, my father was a criminal, and his father was a criminal." (Examples: George W. Bush, The Kennedys, Gotti)

Fulfillment - "Killing is the only thing I know how to do." (Examples: Batman, Art Danthwalker)

Excitement - "The only time I feel alive." (Examples: Hatchetman, Brock Sampson, Hackers)

So, where would my character fit in?

He is an ork that used to work for Power and Light, in the tunnels doing fix-it stuff. However, the tunnels are dangerous places with gangs, devil rats, and other assorted nasties, so he picked up some combat skills as well. He has some cyber, but it's all related to his job.
In '64 when the system crashed, he re-applied for a SIN, but through some devious backroom dealings, many of the SINs handed out were issued more than once. His was one of those, and he wound up on suspension while it was sorted out. It took longer to sort out than P&L was willing to wait, so he wound up losing his job.
He has a SIN, but the background shows that glitch occasionally, so it can create some awkward situations. He has useful skills, but can't get "legit" work, because it's hard for him to porve to an employer that his is the valid SIN, and not the duplicate.

He's going into the shadows 'cause he's got to eat.
Kanada Ten
"Pure monetary gain" from the poster above that one. That's not the only work for SINless; but it pays better than picking toxic moss from buildings or the other landscaping jobs they get picked up for - and so on.
WyldKarde
This seems like a good excuse to finally delurk and bore you all rigid by belting on about my current character. newbie.gif

For a quick yours truly background, I'm a long-time shadowrunner, having cut my teeth on 1st edition shortly after it came out, and I'm currently involved in a 3rd edition campaign being run online through OpenRPG.

For me, when I'm creating a character the most important question is 'Why do they shadowrun?' After all, most starting characters have the sort of skills that can translate into lucrative employment in many less dangerous (or at least, less highly illegal) fields. That means the motive has to be more than just sweet negotiable currency.

So, here's exhibit (a). David Six Guns Blazing, Owlman to some, Blaze to his chummers. 'John Blazer' or 'William Honing' depending on which credstick of dubious provenance he's using to collect payment from you. In terms of stereotypical archetypes he's a street shaman who follows Owl.

So why does he run the shadows? He needs the money. But it's not for him. Blaze is a genuine tribal shaman, it's just his tribe are a little different. They're squatters in Redmond. They've been there for a while now and are well established. They have their own 'turf' carved out, a place where they can walk safely because they enforce the law for themselves in that area. Aside from an occasional clash with local gangs it's a more or less peaceful neighborhood. Sounds like they're doing alright, huh? Except for the fact that everyone lives on or below the poverty line, power and clean water are pretty hard to come by, and conditions are unsanitary at best. Blaze has his work cut out for him just keeping everyone healthy. Then there's that occasional tussle with neighboring gangs that means he's off to provide some magical backup to the tribe's braves and then has to mojo the bullets out of them afterwards. All in all, life's tough and pretty drekky, as you'd expect it to be in the barrens.

Blaze pretty well blundered into shadowrunning by accident. A trip to the local stuffershack one night turned into a firefight (Why yes, there were a lot of newbs at the start of this campaign, how did you guess?) and when the dust settled there was a chromed up dwarf nearby who was impressed with how our young hero handled himself and invited him for some less than honest work.

So Blaze managed to get some serious money for the first time in his life. He rented himself a decent apartment not too far from his tribe's turf and was able to actually eat regularly for a change. Then it all went a bit pear shaped. There was a run, standard stuff, grab the MacGuffin off the couriers. The ambush went as planned and payment was made, but it seems one of the ambushees (a rival runner team) had some kind of honour code or 'saving face' drek that meant the he wanted to hunt Blaze down and 'make him bleed three times for the amount he bled from me'. Trouble is, Blaze was pretty hard to find. Blaze's tribe, on the other hand, were very easy to find. So the rival runner decided to lure the shaman out. Once per night he'd sneak around tribal turf and mug someone. He'd leave them unconscious and unharmed, except that he'd take their ear (Blaze had shot the guy's ear off with a near-miss from his pistol). Once the tribe realised the pattern to these attacks word got out pretty quickly and Blaze managed to end the threat and even get compensation for the attacks.

Trouble is, Blaze isn't a 'pure' Owl shaman. His old mentor was the tribe's former shaman, the late lamented Laughing Hound. Old Man Hound was a shaman of Dog. and as a result Blaze has a distinct Doggish streak to him. One of the things Hound drilled into his apprentice's head was that you always take care of your pack. Blaze realised that while he'd gotten himself out of living in trash, he wasn't able to properly fulfil his duty. It's not enough to get himself out, he has to get them all out.

So that's why he does what he does. Most of the money he gets from Running actually goes into tribal coffers. It pays for food, medicine, chip books to educate the young and so on. Eventually Blaze plans to have enough money to buy some farmland out in Snohomish or somewhere and set the whole tribe up to live a decent life. And on a metagaming note, it's an interesting challenge to play a character who gives away most of the money he makes. No huge strings of Foci for Blaze. In fact, he owns two, and one of those is loot from a defeated enemy.

Well, there you have it. Think I've managed to stay more-or-less on topic. Hope you've not all been bored rigid.
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