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emo samurai
I made one up for a Burgermonger when I gamed over IRC.

"The Burgermonger's walls are mostly glass, just like any other Burgermonger. They are covered with many years' worth of graffiti; the management used to have them cleaned, but they obviously gave up a long time ago, since the paint is now probably thicker than the glass. They have fired the guards they had to compete with McHughes; the business is obviously just waiting to go bankrupt."

Anyone else have good setting descriptions?
Fortune
There are quite a few decent Locations at Adam's The Shadowrun Supplemental, and you can download this pdf from the same site with even more.

That should get you started. wink.gif
emo samurai
Very nice, very nice. /Strongbad
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (emo samurai)
I made one up for a Burgermonger when I gamed over IRC.

"The Burgermonger's walls are mostly glass, just like any other Burgermonger. They are covered with many years' worth of graffiti; the management used to have them cleaned, but they obviously gave up a long time ago, since the paint is now probably thicker than the glass. They have fired the guards they had to compete with McHughes; the business is obviously just waiting to go bankrupt."

Anyone else have good setting descriptions?

"Obviously" recurrs too much for that small block of text.

The only thing you're describing is how the glass is covered with graffiti, really. How about telling us what the graffiti looks like? At least throw a word or two in to give us an image; call it "serpentine" graffiti or "Pollak-esque", but at least give us something to visualize.

Besides, if you want to give the impression of a burger joint on its last legs why are you talking about graffitied windows? Why don't you tell us about the filthy restroom, the sticky floor, or how the wastebaskets have a faint odor of rancid beer?
Kagetenshi
I disagree—it doesn't occur enough. Example:

The Burgermonger's walls are obviously glass, just like any other Burgermonger. They are obviously covered with many years' worth of graffiti; the management obviously used to have them cleaned, but they obviously gave up a long time ago, since the paint is obviously now thicker than the glass. They have obviously fired the guards they had to compete with McHughes; the business is obviously just waiting to go bankrupt.

~J
emo samurai
I didn't use that exact description in my IRC game, and now that I think of it, I didn't use "obviously" in it, but you're right, that example of my prose is lacking.
Fortune
QUOTE (emo samurai)
... but you're right, that example of my prose is lacking.

Obviously. wink.gif
emo samurai
QUOTE (Fortune)
QUOTE (emo samurai @ Nov 23 2006, 08:41 AM)
... but you're right, that example of my prose is lacking.

Obviously. wink.gif

Bah!
Demerzel
Hah, that TSS pdf linked above has a "Captain" Marko Raimius in it.

I guess he gave up the submarine for a dirigible...
BrianL03
In the interest of finding out how I write up locations, here's a post regarding a transient hotel (think the Blues Brothers style location):

QUOTE
Dodging a grey KIA Rio as she crossed the street and its barrage of angry honking, Banshee yanked at the door of the hotel unsuccessfully, giving it another pull before the old metal frame yielded with a scratch of steel upon rusted steel. A breeze of stale cancerstick smoke greeted her, along with the occaisonal waft of urine and old vomit, and the dim lighting did nothing to help the atmosphere inside. A pair of ratty couches, probably at least forty years old by their style, complemented the equally torn men that were sleeping upon them.
emo samurai
Wow, nice description.
Snow_Fox
Wasn't that Piston's old character?
SL James
Looks like her writing.
Snow_Fox
If you want to see how to do discriptions try some victorian english writers. in particular Dickens and Doyle. or from Americans Lovecraft and Fritz Leiber. These men were professional writers usually working in short stories or installments and they could convey the feeling of a place with a modicum of words.

The sense of darkened alleys where the smoke seems to swirle a little more sluggishly, as if having ofund it's way in it was not sure of how to come out again

or

of woods, ancient forests that seemed to have never known the tread of the white man's foot, where moss hung trees, of their own accord warn the occassional pedestrian that to enter under their boughs is to risk never finding the way out.
knasser
QUOTE (Snow_Fox)
If you want to see how to do discriptions try some victorian english writers. in particular Dickens and Doyle. or from Americans Lovecraft and Fritz Leiber. These men were professional writers usually working in short stories or installments and they could convey the feeling of a place with a modicum of words.


I've never heard Lovecraft described as using a "modicum of words" before. biggrin.gif

Often, a few choice words are better than a lot. I think Raymond Chandler is a good model for role-playing, having an almost haiku-like quality to this writing, in that he can conjure the essentials with a few perfectly placed words:

"[Los Angeles was] a great big sun-tanned hangover."

"She smells the way the Taj Mahal looks, by moonlight."

"His voice faded away to a sad whisper, like a mortician asking for a down payment."

All very evocative and going straight for the imagination. Read a few of his novels and you'll come out of it with a liking for terse, vivid descriptions that suit GM'ing a game very well.
SL James
QUOTE (Snow_Fox)
If you want to see how to do discriptions try some victorian english writers. in particular Dickens and Doyle. or from Americans Lovecraft and Fritz Leiber.

Heh.

Actually, that excerpt (which I'm 90% sure is Pistons) is a good example of the basics of setting description used by a certain group of SL users.

Smoking? Check
Old and worn buildings? Check
Dirty? Check
References to human body fluids? Check

Ah... Good times.
mfb
here's a few i like (or am proud of):

Brick City Shaolin
[ Spoiler ]


The Hollow Point
[ Spoiler ]


Dragon Temple Non Therapeutic Massage Parlor
[ Spoiler ]
krayola red
Heh, "Non Therapeutic Massage Parlor." What a great name. biggrin.gif
Snow_Fox
QUOTE (knasser)
QUOTE (Snow_Fox @ Nov 23 2006, 09:53 AM)
If you want to see how to do discriptions try some victorian english writers. in particular Dickens and Doyle.  or from Americans Lovecraft and Fritz Leiber. These men were professional writers usually working in short stories or installments and they could convey the feeling of a place with a modicum of words.


I've never heard Lovecraft described as using a "modicum of words" before. biggrin.gif

Often, a few choice words are better than a lot. I think Raymond Chandler is a good model for role-playing, having an almost haiku-like quality to this writing, in that he can conjure the essentials with a few perfectly placed words:

"[Los Angeles was] a great big sun-tanned hangover."

"She smells the way the Taj Mahal looks, by moonlight."

"His voice faded away to a sad whisper, like a mortician asking for a down payment."

All very evocative and going straight for the imagination. Read a few of his novels and you'll come out of it with a liking for terse, vivid descriptions that suit GM'ing a game very well.

I admit that chandler is a good source for such details, but the problem is it is hard to come up with such evocative terms. In details you can flesh out. If every alley smells of urine, characters start to carry cans of lysol.
BrianL03
QUOTE (Snow_Fox)
Wasn't that Piston's old character?

I vaguely remember Piston, but this is a friend's character I was writing for as GM over in another forum.

Thanks for the praise, that was a segment I was pretty proud of, wanted to see if I could improve on it more. Some of my earlier stuff wasn't evocative enough, so I tried working more with relations between the location and its inhabitants. Helps to make the setting more personable, I've found.

The Los Angeles comparison sounds lovely. I'm going to have to try that, too. I personally work off of Gibson's Neuromancer first line: "The sky was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel".

Beautiful.
mfb
how could i forget my favorite location description?

Lakemont Village Veterinary Hospital
[ Spoiler ]

Dog
"This neighborhood is the dark corner that hope crawled in to die."

Snow_Fox
as a rough quote: The house looked so out of place in that sqyuare, that one could only assume that it wnet in there while a young ohuse playing hide and seek and forgot to find its way out again-
From Dicken's A Christmas Carrol.

For good discriptions, try Robert Parker's Spenser serries. He evokes other images to draw in your mental picture. Examples I remember:
He could make eating spare ribs look elegant. whenever I ate ribs I ended up with sauce on my socks.

or

It had that futile feeling like a ball game, late in the season when neither team is in contention.

Vegas
QUOTE (mfb)
how could i forget my favorite location description?

Lakemont Village Veterinary Hospital
[ Spoiler ]

Hey I liked the Vet's office!
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