I'm starting my first Shadowrun campaign soon, and I'm wondering how much I should let the players know about the world. I could set them loose on the Sixth World Wiki, but that has lots of "sensitive" information. Is there a single location that has everything that would be common knowledge to everyone in Shadowrun? I could give me players this, and then players who play someone with greater knowledge would get additional information.

Of course, I could just let them look at the cannon timeline here at Dumpshock. Unless the players -study- it, would that be a good representation of the general knowledge Shadowrun characters have picked up over time?

Thanks for the help!

[Dead Alewives]
If you don't remember...then your CHARACTER dosen't remember!
[/Dead Alewives]

Seriously, though, in a distopian urban setting I'd have everyone be ignorant of all but the biggest and most noticeable events presented in the offical timeline. It's like if you went to the inner city and interviewed random people about something like Iran Contra or the USMC invading Grenada or the recently-reported actual torture that was occuring at gitmo most people wouldn't actually know about these things. However, something that was very visible such as the WTC getting beaned they'd probably know about.

So, unless your characters have backgrounds saying they were college educated or something like that just make them painfully and offensively ignorant. That's accurate, IMO.

I treat anything written In-Character in the sourcebooks to be available since they're Shadowland documents (actually, they're called "sourcebooks" IC, too, according to SR3Comp), and all of my PCs (mine and my Players') are assumed to be keeping up with what's being posted on Shadowland.

Likewise, they are expected to know what's going on in the world and what has gone on in the world, because ignorance kills.

Personally, I'm planning at our next session to announce a retcon that the Sears Tower demolition is believed to have been carried out by metahuman extremists in retaliation for the Night of Rage, with unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that it was an Alamos 20,000 job.

Speaking of the event, unless I'm mistaken the writers have never explained why everyone knows it was Alamos 20,000. It's all "everyone thought it was the metas, now they don't". Grr…

~J

I can't imagine how they figured out jack shit. It's not like when they bombed that city in Ohio and then sent e-mails of footage from the bomb cameras to the media.

Whenever you notice something like that, Alamos 20k did it.

It is a bit of a mystery, though. The timeline posts in 1st and 2nd edition don't even mention it, only their involvement in New Horizons. The earliest bit saying A20k was responsible for the Shattergraves is in the Chicago history section of the Neo-Anarchists' Guide to North America (I believe that came before Bug City, since there's no mention of the CZ). It gives a slightly expanded version of the story, but doesn't say how anyone knows it was really Alamos instead of the angry metahumans that Alamos worked so hard to pin it on. And since the City and corps banded together to pen the metas and the poor into the region shortly thereafter, it looks like almost everyone else bought the "metas did it" story after all - except for the readers of Shadowland, who got the "real" scoop.

The disclaimer from the compiler at the beginning of the post says he can't guarantee the accuracy of anything in it (providing loopholes for GM canon), so it's entirely possible that the "fact" that Alamos was behind this incident is largely contained to Shadowland and a few other shadier content providers and perpetuated largely because no one bothers to question it (given the heavy pro-meta bias of the forum, why would they?). Which would probably help explain why "Voice of Reason" downplays the threat, saying they were only ever definitely linked to the New Horizons massacre and a number of much smaller-scale operations (mainly assassinations). Perhaps he never read the earlier posts and was working from the common perception (that they were one-hit wonders). Cap, naturally, relies on his own source, so would go with the A20k explanation whenever he relates the story (as in the 3rd ed. timeline).

Kinda lame, certainly, but I don't think the logic is too tortured.

But I figure Alamos 20,000 is just the 6th world media's go-to terrorist boogeyman when they don't have anyone else to pin the blame on. They showed they had the chops with New Horizons, and they've got great name-recognition. As it says later in the Threats entry, everytrog and his brother puts them behind every single anti-meta terrorist op that goes down, even if someone else takes the fall for it.

Don't forget the magicians, too. Magic was also used in the attack, and magic is what made the Shattergraves possible.

Plus, you know, the Bugs.