I was having a friendly little chat with a gamer at my local comic shoppe the other day, and of course the topic of Shadowrun came up. It was your normal "I like this" and "Lofwyr is a King Kong super pimp isn't he?" conversation when the discusson turned to changes in the game. Now anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I like to "personalize" campaign worlds. It's not that I think the creator's had a bad ideas (well, about some things I do, but on the whole I think they did a great job otherwise I wouldn't have been playing the game since it came out 14 years ago), but just that I think some things should be different.

For instance in my world there is no California Free State. It is apart of the CAS and has been ever since the CAS whipped up on the Tir for invading Northern California after the UCAS kicked Cali out of the Union (This is why the Tir built a big wall around their country and made the Tir Ghost training super hard). There are no Imperial Japanese Marines in San Fran because the CAS went to war with the Imperial Japanese State in the years between 37 and 39, and leaving San Fran was part of the peace settlement, just as there is no independant kingdom of Hawa'ii as it is part of the Imperial Japanese State. Also Cuba is apart of the CAS and so is all of Texas. Now a lot of you may be saying "cool" or "how dare you sir! That is not canon!" And that's fine, but I guess my question is a 2 part one. Have any of you GM's out there ever changed something that was "canon" in the SR world, and what was it. Second if you are against canon changes then why?

Sincerely,

Laz

Heretical GM

I tend to be the only GM in my RL games and yes I've changed a few canon things. But nothing major like that. For example: I don't like the armor rules one bit. Well part of the armor rules. I think, IMO, that if a person were to were two vests then he/she should get the ballastic and impact value for both vests. Yes I realize it is now incredibly difficult to hurt them, but I still follow the quickness and combat pool modifiers. AND!! When they are out in public they have to roleplay extra well why they look like a punching bag. It also attracts a lot of attention from the Star when 4 or 5 people armored up the butt and armed to the teeth are strolling down the street.

Now I don't believe they should change the rules on it. It is simply a house rule my players and I use.

I stick to cannon with rules. If you start changing things it's to hard to keep track of things, then you start forgetting what you changed. It's a nightmare. However my story lines never follow the cannon-verse. But that is because my players don't go saving the world everyother day and twice on tuesdays.

I don't mind system tweaks, but there has to be a standard of how they are implemented.

GMs must:
1) Implement it before game play, ideally discussing it with players first
2) Allow players to change characters should the tweak directly affect a concept
3) Keep a log of system tweaks for reference

My two bits.

-Siege

I change canon around to keep things interesting, sure. Among my changes:

Another major Great Dragon, though one that keeps itself very low-key (thus requiring little overt reworking of previous plot)

Four more corporations vying for AAA status, two of whom make it (in 2060 and 2061, respectively) and one of whom gets shredded in the intercorporate warfare

Another medical service like CrashCart and DocWagon

And other things that I shall not reveal, because some people playing in some of my games read these boards.

~J

I've always had one thing that given the chance I would stricken from my personal shadowrun world: The NANs and the CAS

Now I bet a lot of you are up in arms about that one considering that they do play a major roll in the shadowrun world, but I just could never justify them. One doesn't make sense logistically the other just grates on me nerves a lot.

Instead of NANs, there would be Rez Lands, which were the vanguards of the whole Corp Extraterritoriality movements. Corps would move onto Rez Lands and make deals with the tribes, in the process making the tribe filthy rich. But you say, what about the noble NAs who live at peace with nature and would not succumb to the evils of the white man's world? Face it, greed isn't a racial thing, it's a species thing, and everyone's got a price. The NAs don't control half the country, instead most of the Rez Land tribes have one or two members sitting on most corporate boards with a significant stock percentage, which is a lot more power then half the midwest.

The CAS just doesn't exist in my world. Period. End of Discussion.

Never gotten a chance to impliment these changes, but I probably running a campaign this summer when I am back from school, so heres hoping.

I'm currently working on a complete overhaul of the Shadowrun history. There are a number of pieces of the official history that I consider to be just Bloody Stupid... NAN and the Great Ghost Dance, for example. There are other pieces that simply don't have the feel I want in the game... the low population produced by VITAS, for example. I want sprawl, I want the Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis, I don't want frickin' Seattle pretending to be a metroplex, especially with a population not much higher than it is today. And then there are some things, like the Great Fourth World Conspiracy controlling everything, that I consider to be both Bloody Stupid and bad for atmosphere. Many of these things, like the examples given, are so fundamental to the canon history that in order to change them, you have to change everything. So I did.

The Great Ghost Dance never happened in my world. The Awakened plagues (and I've speculated that that's what VITAS is, even in canon) came, and the death tolls were horrible, but they couldn't keep up with the exploding population... all they did was slow the rate of growth, and produce a lot of corpses. The US did balkanize, though, even without the GGD... the magical assassination of a President early in the Awakening sparked civil disorder that degenerated into full-scale civil war. When the dust settled, the U.S. consisted of the states east of the Mississippi (except for Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama), plus the West Coast states, and the rest had formed the Free Republic of America, with the capitol in Austin. The West Coast states eventually broke off peacefully - the geographical separation got to be too much... I haven't decided yet whether they'll have broken into the respective states, or just formed one big bloc.

Quebec finally got around to seceding from Canada, too, which occurred more or less peacefully.The plains provinces may have decided to go their own way, too, feeling that Ottawa wasn't really addressing their issues, but I haven't finalized that yet.

The Second American Civil War stirred up a lot of stuff elsewhere in the world, too... most U.S. troops got pulled back home, so without the threat of American carrier groups hovering over them, North Korea overran the South, China finally went for Taiwan, and Japan called self-defense and muscled in on both conflicts (which resulted in North Korea lobbing a nuke at Tokyo, which failed for reasons unknown). It ended up with Japan in firm "protective" possession of Taiwan and Korea, but unable to move the Chinese any further, while the Chinese, unbeatable on the defensive, didn't have the naval or air power to get anywhere on the offensive, so things settled into a cold war with occasional shooting and a lot of nasty underworld shenanigans.

The Middle East just exploded when American garrison troops were pulled out... U.S. "caretaker" governments in Iraq, Iran, and Syria collapsed immediately. Also, some of those troops didn't want to go back home into the meat grinder that was shaping up stateside, so they deserted... sometimes in entire units, taking equipment and everything. A lot of those ended up in Africa or various Central Asian former soviets with names ending in "-stan", working as mercenaries.

South America's main issue came from the... things in the Amazon jungle. Feathered serpents, other stranger creatures, who didn't particularly like human encroachment. They basically stopped deforestation in its tracks and started pushing back slowly. The central jungle is now basically no-man's-land, except for occasional corporate missions that discover something exotic and valuable enough in there to risk the loss of human resources and capital if something should eat them.

Africa is still Africa, Russia is still trying to pick up the pieces of the USSR, the EU has grown more unified and powerful generally, though the UK finally said bugger it and walked. I haven't decided what to do with India yet... they would've been the hardest hit by the plagues, but I'm not sure about them otherwise. Australia's not changed much. There's weird stuff going on in the Outback, but it's not hostile to human habitation the way the Amazon is.

On a smaller scale, I've got my Sprawl... the coast of East America is continuously urbanized from Boston to Richmond, with a break before the RTP-to-Charlotte corridor in NC, and then another break before the Atlanta metroplex.

I haven't decided what to do with the comet yet. SURGE is on my Bloody Stupid list, but I want to do something... comets are traditionally harbingers of war and disaster (s'where the word "disaster" comes from, actually). I'm thinking maybe the Big One in California, perhaps with Mexico invading in the aftermath, and war in Europe (I haven't been mean enough to them) and things heating up again in Southeast Asia...

I mostly just screw with the order of things. The Arcology and the Universal Brotherhood stuff get pushed up to quite recently, the year of the comet had very little effect, largely speaking, and a few other minor things. All the really good stuff is too far in the past to play with in canon, imho.

Out of curiosity, what about the CAS grates on your nerves so much?

I personally never liked the overwhelming control the corporations seem to have as far as the flow of the plot goes. Nat'l governments, especially the big kahunas like the Russians, UCAS, etc, have significantly more power that standard SR-verse and tolerate the current situation because ultimately, it's mutually beneficial to both the corps and governments. Democratic Republics/Paparliamentaryystems aren't as much of a joke either, and the UCAS, CAS, and Quebec are only moderately more dark and gloomy than thier crurrent incarnations.

Certain parts of North America still have plenty of old fashioned skin color based racism. Call me cynical, but I think that goblinization would simply add more folks to hate while not necessarily surplanting the old hatreds and stereotypes.

Texas resistance was successful and the Rio Grande forms it's Southern and Eastern boundaries. Massive bloodshed results as Atzlan sympathizers (and anyone suspected of being one) are hunted down in the Rio Grande Valley (Area between San Antonio, Laredo, Brownsville, currently a hotspot in RL of folks who want to hand over Texas to Mexico). I still think Texas is part of the CAS due to economic/defensive security/nessesnecessityAlamo is replaced in San Antonio but the capitol remains in Dallas/Ft. Worth

I don't think the NAN makes any sense either, but no less so than folks turning into orcs and trolls for the hell of it, being able to wrap a bone completely in plastic/metal and people shooting lightning bolts from their hands. Plus, it's so deeply intwined with the SR plot that it's near impossible to alter it without affecting most of the rest of the universe, as previously mentioned.

CalFree is still being borgered senseless by the Japanese, if only for the fact that I don't like California

Are you sure you wouldn't consider secession if the US merged with Canada?

~J, who is from the state who prompted the clause in the Constitution saying that no state had the power to declare war because his state (well, Maine, but they were a part of MA then) invaded Canada

Postscript: I love Canada, personally, considering moving there later in life. However, while I live here I am oathbound to give Canada a hard time

[edit]You'd consider succession... sure... I'm awake...

Wow this is some pretty cool feedback! To address some issues that came up. Particularly the formation of the NAN. Ok I agree that I have a BIG problem with the NAN formation from a logical standpoint, but like someone else said in this thread you can't get rid of them or the Great Ghost Dance without seriously altering the world. So basically I changed some of the reasons behind its formation and what went down.

Changes:

Sovereign Tribal Council does not order all “Anglos” (Can't run a country if you ask 98% of your population to leave) to leave North America, only that they adhere to the certain “official” treaties that were made with Native Americans by the United States government.(basically after the Trail of Tears). This is what the Treaty of Denver is based on. This argument goes along the same lines that Israel uses for its justification of having a country, England promised us this land after the First World War and because the Torah says we are God's chosen people. Same thing with the STC except they site the treaties made with the Jackson Administration, I can't remember what it's legal name is but something like "we were here first" (It's actually pretty interesting because back in the early days of the US the Cherokees actually brought a case like this to the Supreme Court, and the Chief Justice said that the Native Americans claim was invalid because they did not have the concept of private property in their culture so therefore that didn't have any property rights to their own land. And since whites did have that in their culture then they could claim the land. Talk about the man screwing you!)

The reason that the US came to the table in the first place is because of the Great Ghost Dance. I changed it to where people were really, really afraid of magic on that scale at this time. There were doomsayers in the government that really thought that the Native Americans could blow up the world. (Basically like the Japanese thought the Americans in WWII had more atomic bombs when we only had the 2 on hand.) Then you also had those politicos that supported the Native Americans, and were sick of the way that America had treated the Native Americans and they had finally had enough (and if you don't that's possible then you need to read some articles about those Americans that got into Baghdad to try and stop the Americans from bombing it this time around.)

So the Treaty of Denver was backed by the UN, mostly by China, France, Japan, and the Soviet Union (Yes they were still Stalinist communists. I basically wrote it that the hardliners actually succeeded in ousting Gorbi (which they did) and retained power.) and certain “left” elements in the US that agree with the NAN’s Green Policy. President William Jarman becomes the first president in US history to be impeached. Jarman becomes the scapegoat for the "collapse of our great nation, and our role as a superpower". (Wow! imagine Americans putting ALL the blame for their country's woes on the President! )

2031, The Euro-Wars, NATO/Soviet Union war begins. The UCAS gets involved to defend Germany, due to hawks in the Southern portion of the government that remember Germany being the only vocal proponent for the United States during the Treaty of Denver. (Now this may seem a little farfetched, but not really. When you have problems at home, you need to find a war, and fight it. Why didn't they invade the NAN? Well the UN was protecting their status as a new nation, without the help from China and Soviets as they were really getting to invade Europe and Japan respectively. Plus the UCAS honestly thought they would come crawling back. It's the mindset of "Hey why would anyone want to leave this great country? They will come back! But first we have to go get those commies. They were the cause of this mess!) The war lasts three years with a high body count, and the Soviet Union collapses and China erupts into Civil War. Politicians in the North and Canada began to pass legislation and welfare reform that borders on socialism (Canada), and because of the bloody conflict in Europe, which now many people see as pointless, but not everyone, they call for the downsizing of the military.

The states of the SR CAS leave the UCAS and begin to set up their own government. Since SR uses history as a model for their world I basically wrote that the reasons for leaving were much like the ones in 1861, which is over politically differences (now before any of you get upset, I am not saying the CAS is the CSA. They don't have slavery and this is not the rebirth of the Old South. People in the CAS actually see themselves as "the only real Americans". They feel that they left because of unfair taxation and tyrannical government, basically using the arguments that the revolutionary fathers did.)

March, 2035 – Jan, 2036: Aztlan invades Texas. Aztlan leaves the NAN and then attacks Texas. No Texas does not leave and comeback to the CAS, and Aztlan does not take Texas all the way to San Antonio. CAS Special Forces and Partisan citizens kick some major ass and push them back across the Rio Grande. Aztlan asks the NAN for help to which they say "Go F**k yourself, you left on your own, you made this mess, clean it up yourself." (I am sure the actually diplomatic correspondence was a little more tactful but you get the idea).

April, 2036 – March, 2037: CAS/Tir Tairngire war: California is kicked out of the UCAS. Tir Tairngire invades, but the CAS offers statehood, to which California accepts. The CAS declares war on Tir Tairngire and the shooting begins. CAS pushes the elves out of California. (The reason for the wall). Again Tir asks for the NAN's aid and they give them the same reply as Aztlan. Because of the way the CAS is handling itself with two wars and the UCAS's lack of helping California the states of Maryland, Delaware, the rest of Virginia, and Kentucky leave the UCAS and apply to the CAS for statehood. The CAS moves its Capital from Atlanta to Washington DC, and the UCAS moves to Philadelphia. (One of my gamers asked me why the CAS didn't just go back to being the USA. I said basically it was an image thing, the mytho-poetic rewriting of history. They want to keep all the good stuff from American history and the individual Southern Spirit, while trying to downplay the negative. "See we are the USA, but we don't kill Native Americans like the USA. We believe in State government over Federal government in the CAS, but we are not the CSA with slaves and all." It's complicated and somewhat over-simplified much like the historical perspective about my country's (USA) past today.

April, 2037 – April, 2039: After months of negotiation with the Japanese Imperial State on the removal of Japanese Divisions from San Francisco and Hawaii. (Japan sent in the Marines to protect "Japan citizens and property during the Tir war". No California did not ask for aid, Japan just did it, trying to grab a slice real quick, but they underestimated the CAS's resolve) The CAS makes a surprise raid on Pearl Harbor and San Francisco. The Japanese Imperial State appeals to the UN for aid but finds that it has no friends. Germany joins the CAS in its war against the Japanese Imperial State. Soon there is fighting in Southeast Asia. (The CAS fights the Japanese in China, the Philippines, and Vietnam in order to shift the fighting away from the home front, and to bring it to Japan's backyard.) The war ends with really no clear victor in terms of gain, but the CAS regains control of California, and Japan agrees to buy Hawaii.

August, 2052 – October 2052: CAS invades Cuba to “uphold its sovereignty” against Aztlan (who actually made plans to invade it first, but were actually 2nd, as the CAS had covert ops teams in country the day before the invasion.) Most of the government is killed in the fighting (This is due to the CAS but the blame is laid against Aztlan.) A provisional government is set up, and in December 2052 they formally ask to be let into the CAS. (Basically the CAS was backed by SK and Ares. They wanted to block Aztechnology's attempt at expansion, and I wanted to turn Cuba sort of back to the way it was before Castro. You know with the Mafia and Casinos, but with Megacorps too!)

The CAS is composed of 20 states: Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, New Mexico, California, South Carolina, North Carolina, Puerto Rico & the Virgin Islands, and Cuba

Ok why did I do all this? Because my guys like to play Special Forces and Intelligence (CIA) type games. Differences in this world from SR

1. CAS Special Forces are the best in the world. They have been in more wars then any one country in the last thirty years and with bases such as Ft. Benning, GA, Fort Bragg, NC, and Camp Lejeune, NC they have the tradition of Special Forces more so then any country in North America.

2. The CAS takes a definite foreign policy shift from the UCAS. CAS does not have a Secretary of Defense, they have a Sec. of War. Their policy is something like George W. Bush's, pre-emptive maintence. Unlike the UCAS, which doesn't want to get involved in anything that might cause themselves trouble, the CAS takes the attitude lets keep the opposition busy so they won't become a problem later. However they do not have the resources to invade and occupy countries, plus that is a little counter-productive since imperialism doesn't really work except at pissing native populations off. So instead they train guerillas and rebels and run Black operations against anyone they perceive as a threat in the near future. Again this is done with intelligence agencies and Special Forces.

3. Yes the Megas are powerful but they do not like fighting big wars and running governments (Wars and governments are a money sink, and corps are in business to make a profit. Now wars are profitable if you are supplying the guns to a government, but if you are fielding troops then, no.) Yes they do have military forces of their own but is more to uphold extraterritoriality and keep the wolves at bay (other Megas and governments).

So no the Sioux Wildcats and the Tir Ghosts are not the best in my game. Yes they are highly trained and yes they can kick some major ass, but CAS has the edge because of veteran experience and tradition.

Well sorry for this long piece. Just thought I would share my little view of the world since many of you were kind enough to share yours. Thanks for reading it.

...

I would SO love to run my Texan face/sniper character in that universe. Sure it's a pro-CAS wank-fest, but that's why I love it. Plus it shows at least one of the remnants of the U.S. trying to pick up the pieces and succeeding instead of getting swept aside by the winds of politics.

Ahh, Texas.

Where hell is considered a local call.

-Siege

Wow Siege. You must have been to Alpine.

Actually, it's kinda funny.

I'm driving through North Texas, down from Oklahoma.

It's so damned hot out, I sweat like five pounds going from my car to the gas station to pay for the gas. I'm wearing a light cotton t-shirt and by the time I get half-way from my car, it's soaked through with sweat. And no, I'm not joking. I'm feeling light-headed in the shade.

I bought three ice cold gatorades just to keep my fluid level vaguely resembling normal.

As I was getting into my car, I saw a vision of Hell. Not just Hell, bt the Devil's own tour guide brochure.

Some poor soul was stuck in a dog suit, promoting a new restaurant opening. In heat that would make the devil blush. I don't know what kind of bet the person lost to wind up with that job...


-Siege

I actually that history Larazus and might use part of it. As for myself, CAS and the UCAS didn't slipt up and stayed the USA (the ex-Canada parts may stay or become a state). The Texas border moves down to its former place as well (as there's more backing for keeping it there). I'll like the NAN gone but they're a major part of the workings of Shadowrun so they stay. I however have that they barely won the civil war and know it so they're trying not to cause trouble.

The biggest change I'll like to make is to the dragons, IEs and the first though fourth worlds. I got rid of the Earthdawn connection and fit the Worlds within geological time. Dragons arose during the Paleozoic Era and due to war (the Paleozoic extinction) all the survivors (i.e. ones that have lairs that kept the alive during the down period) are sterile. As for the IE's are really humans that discovered a dragon lair, killed the dragon within it, learned its sercets and become immortal (elven traits are a side effect). However, the major IEs were "killed" in a revolt and their souls are waiting deep in the metaplanes and working though their agents to try to resurrect themselves and rule the world once again. I never did fully work it out however.

Let's look at the NAN.The ggd, basically made it clear that they were willing to use "nukes". I mean this, they were using magic on the scale that means they are willing to use forces equal to nukes. the US, was not willing to meet, that high of stakes. Remember if the US used a nuke, they would be nuking themselves. So, the NAN got the midwest.Bit deal. Seeing as from an economic point that area costs money to own.THat is at least for the US.

So, let an armed force who is willing to use a MAD plan have land that is of little too no economical value,or go into a nuke war?Oh and here is the kicker, you have nuke yourself to get them!

Now, california has an economy and population base larger than most nations.On a an economic scale it is comparable to Japan.So, how can japan project a force 8,000 miles.Mind you california also is the only place in the world where air craft carries in the world.Last time I checked has 13 cities that make more money,each than most nations in the world.(five of them hapen to be in LA county).

My biggest break from Canon is Chicago is STILL Bug City, and it's expanding, not getting smaller. The DMZ area expands regularly and places like Gary Indiana are now a part of Bug City.

Sphynx

The only really big visible split that we've kept through all the years is having changed the policing contract to the city of Seattle now belongs to Knight Errant. We had KE win the contract back when it was up for renewal in whatever sourcebook mentioned it. It makes it much more fun having the same company do security for a lot of the corps in town as well as for the city.

I was reading "Battle Angel Alita" the other day, and it occured to me that the general setting of that world would make an excellent alternate reality for SRun.

Imagine an endless urban sprawl/junkyard with a large number of medium to heavily cybered characters. Meanwhile, the true elite float above in a mysterious unreachable city, occasionally dumping their trash and exiles into the city below.

The nice thing about it is that it's a little more vague and open-ended than the Srun world. You could drop hints about where the metahumans came from, but no one knows for sure.

Big O would be another good source for an alternate Shadowrun game. A world of domed cities where no-one can remember anything earlier than 10 years ago, but the forgotten past is catching up with them...

"You can kill me, but don't touch this box! It contains the most precious substance in the universe!"
"...I bet it's flan."
"Now, don't let us be tasty... er... hasty! No, not flan, not at all!"

Battle Angel rocks.

~J

Nah, Cent. I didn't think you were coming at me in a negative way. In fact I sort of feel the same way you do about playing SR. (I have nothing against the whole neo-punk rock ganger thing, but most of my characters are professional ex-military, corp sec, or government intelligence).

And as to the balkinization statement, no that wasn't directed towards you. Basically I was just making an arguement for the justification of having mega corps.

"Hey you're not my friend."

"me-me-me-me-me... me-me-me-me-me-me"

G.I. Joe!

Has anyone changed the timeline completely?


For instance I am currently re-writing the timeline so that the awakening will occur with the 2061 passing of Hailey's Comet.


The current game year according to my timeline will instead be 2061, a full 100 years after the awakening. Elves will have had time to show off their longevity, same with Dwarves. More time for the Balkenizations to occur as well as having some massive diseases and other disasters sucking the population's intellectia into oblivion thus retarding the growth of technology.


Obviously it's still a large work in progress, but it's sorta fun in and of itself to play god with Earth completely, rewriting canon.