They're epic and dangerous, but not depressing. What about you?

Well I assume you mean as a GMed game. Me? I try to go for realism.

You murder some sec guard. You might get away with it a few times. Eventually some one will track you down and either try to kill you or put you in jail.

I tend to try to go for more action and 'epic' storyline at times. Its hard to say though. SR lends itself so very well to so many things. Also to me 'Epic' is really a scaled thing. Fighting an adult dragon surely is an 'epic' thing in SR. But so is ganger who fights his way up the ranks to become gang leader, changes the way the gang acts, gains more control and influence. And then uses that influence for good or evil. At the more 'epic' level you wind up fighting off the mob, other larger gangs and so forth.

I mean to me the way the SR world works for example even just doing a run in space. Doesnt matter what that run even is, is 'epic'. It's such a harsh, unforgiving atmosphere before you even have enemies to fight as it is. And it's the sort of thing only one in several hundred million people will ever get to actualy do durring your life time.

My stories won't all be "Dude, I fought a dragon" epic. Like, one of them will be, maybe. Most of the "epic" storylines will be centered around doing things important to the characters. I think my definition of epic actually matches your definition of epic.

But why no depressing? Thats like.. the antithesis of Dysetopian! Which is what SR is all about!

Look at you! Your a runer! Yesss.. you are. And what's that your eating? Soy an Krill again! WOoohoo!

Oh look and your friend billy is now a BTL addict. And so is mom. She's also turned to prostitution and booze.

Heh, Kesslan, that sounds horrible for a story. Emo, our stories are aventures worthy of being written about. In our current game, we're the Elite Force for the new Denver Peace Keeping force, all with Diplomatic Immunity. We mostly investigate paranormal activity due to GhostWalker's obsession with unique spirits, of course, putting us directly against certain underground Aztlan types. Who's got time for bothering with wah-wah stories like family members being BTL addicts or who's eating Soy this evening? There's a reason you never see good novels with a chapter on how horrible the food was, and details on the pooping session afterwards... That stuff's boring.

LOL yeah but think of the character hooks?

Here you are this big bad mega successful runner. Then you find out Mom is into the booze and beatles. Then comes along Mr.J.

Mr J: Say... I heard about your... family problems. Ontop of offering you 20,000 for this job. We would be willing to.... assist you with your problems.
Runner: What's the catch?
Mr J: You have to agree to be on retainer for us. Think about it. Mom can be happy again. We'll get her all the best care. A nice place to live... All you have to do is work only for us. Thats it. No other strings attached.

Ohh! ANd to make it worse.

They'll try to get you to do a job you dont like and hold dear old mom as 'incentive' over your head. Afterall... we wouldnt want dear old mommy to have an accident now would we?

So then you gotta get mom out from under the clutches of the Megas and also explain to her just why exactly your taking away all this shiny new stuff she's gotten used to having.

I'm with you K. The gittier the game the more SR is "real." The gap between the 'have's' and 'have not's' in the SR 2070 is so huge that even a really successful runner will still not look like he's doing well compared to a lifetime wage slave. Though, as in real life, it's easy for anybody to overlook the squlor and general hoplessness of the majority of the world so long as "me and mine" are taken care of. If the only time you char sees somebody being raped is on the trid's then it won't be "real" to the char until it's thier sister. Which leads to my second caveat.

The type of game you wind up playing will reflect your particular tastes/definition of 'epic'/maturity level and what you want to experience in the SR world. (Just like RL!! ) You can run the slums or shoot high and be a uber-cool GSG-9 operative. The happy thing in SR is you don't have to actually 'work your way out of the gutter' you can choose your background pretty easily. For my tastes I prefer SR to be gritty and real. As described by Kesslan.

Verry well Just for you ErrosCallidus I give you your gritty background!

You: Are an ork!

Dad: Dad is a mild acoholic wageslave. He doesnt admit to his drinking problems either, and he's a mean drunk. Allways comes home from work and has a shot of synthrum. And synthwine at dinner.

Mom: Mom used to work, used to be a hard workign waitess. These days she's a burnout. Goes out withotu speaking to family for hours on end. SOme times doenst come home till the morning. Usually drunk. You've also just recently learned that not only is she using this 'away time' to get her BTL fix. But she's lately been cheating on dad with.. well your not sure just how many men. There's hints that she's actually selling herself out to help pay for ther BTL addiction.

Your gay younger brother was recently murdered by some Humanis punks. And your desire for revenge is part of what helped drive you into the shadows.

Your sister Bethany pretty much just keeps to herself. And is a flat out heavy goigng angsty gothgirl. SHe's deifnately played around with a few 'recreational' drugs and hangs out with questinoable guys. But doesnt seem to be 'really' hurting herself. SHe's getting by somehow dispite her big fights with mom and dad.

Also your cat fluffikins has recently dissapeared. There's hints that.. oddly enough your goldfish may have eaten him.

Nothing wrong with the scenario you laid out Kesslan, especially if someone bought the dependant flaw. I wasn't talking about that, because I wouldn't consider that sort of story 'depressing'.

That's not a gritty background, that's a sob story. I hate soap-opera games, in our games, you could write up a background like that, but it wouldn't factor into most of the games at all. O.o

Ehh.. yes and no. Thing is what is 'grit'? 'Grit' is the sob stories. What's a sob story? Personal hardships. What are hardships? 'Grit'. Thus Grit is the sobstories, the sobstories are grit.

You can certainly overdo it. But asside from the whole gold fish eating the cat thing. You could very well wind up with a family like that in SR. It happens clsoe enough in RL afterall.

That's the problem. I recognize and accept that alot of people, especially since the advent of the World of Darkness game, go for a 'realistic' approach to the game. However, I play games to not simulate RL. My character can fly, move things with his mind, and lives in a world where dragons and elves are common place. Sure, you can focus on the negative side if that's what it takes for you to tell a story. Us, we're gonaa focus on the other side of things. The actual Runs and adventures. To each his own though, I don't need to dwell on your family defects to tell an awesome shadowrun story.

The difference between Grit and Sobstory is very small.

Kesslan does have a good basic background for both right there, but to really determine which one it is depends on how the game/story plays out.

If the character is all crying and angsty over the tough world and all it threw at him, but doesnt do anything, its a sob story.
If the character goes, 'Damn, my life sucks... I need to change something and I think I'll do this to change it', it's Grit.

At least that's my take on it.

Actually, 'grit' deals with hardship. Having a brother killed can be grit. Making him gay makes it a sob story. Mom working hard to make ends meet and being dependant on something like alcohol is grit. Selling her body makes it a sob story. At least in my opinion.

So you just think his backstory is 'over the top'...

Yes, and I think the manner it was done makes it a sob story. When the objective is to make the reader feel sorry for more than the character. Not only did he endure his brother's death, but his poor brother endured gay persecution. Not only did he endure a hard life due to limited income, but feel sorry for his mom who is making a slut out of herself. It's more than just 'over the top', it's a sob story.

Ehh. The brother being gay doesnt have a thing to do with it being a 'sob story'. This is shadowrun remember? Gay is just as normal and every day as 'straight'. It's public. It's not the least bit 'taboo' in the world of SR.

The fact that he's gay in SR simply defines the sort of friends he was likely to have. Friends that might want to help you get revenge or something. Friends who, like your now deceased brother are probably also gay for at least part of it. It might not under SR be 'taboo' and it might be totally acceptable. But it still is a sort of different 'social circle' than if he was straight.

So where exactly did this gay persecution come in? No one cares that he's gay. And while the example is 'over the top.' Again. Some times life really is like that to one degree or another. One guy I was friends with in highschool. His parents were both washed up druggies. His sister was this sort of 'typical goth girl'.

He started to get into harder drugs and we slapped em about and gave him a hard time over it so he went back to pot. Did a few years in the military and sort of sorted his life out since. He still hasnt made much of his life, probably never will. But thats reality for you.

Course even your 'usual' poor family doesnt have qutie so much of a stacked deck. But if there's one problem there's usually quite a few.

[Edit]Never mind[/Edit]

I do agree with you Sphynx that not everyone wants the same type of game as another. Dont get me wrong. I love a big blazing action scene as much as anyone else. But I ALSO very much enjoy the social interaction side of RPGs.

I like my NPCs and PCs to actually 'feel alive'. Have their own motivations etc. I will some times go 'over the top'. Simply so that tehre's a more likely chance I can find something to use as a plot hook down the road.

Oh god, this discussion does remind me of one thing one GM I had used to do. He gave us this 'eccentric' fixer. And by god he was.

My first run in with this character was the usual call up about a job. And I'd allready been given the background that he was an 'eccentric' and so on and prefered 'eccentric things'. So when I got asked did I want a staright up or 'eccentric' job... I sadly chose the latter.

So i'm went sort of like this (I'm making most of this up, some pulling from memory but it should give you a good idea).

I went out the door, headed on over to X street. There I met a man with a baguette and a dirt bike. I then had to take the dirt bike over yonder hill, pass it on to some other guy who woudl be there, and take his car. Drive the car on out to such and such a place. Pick up an onvelope that was under a rock of a specific tree. Then follow those directions to another car. Swap cars, find more instructions under the seat. Drive to X location. Leave the car in a public parking lot. HOp a bus down to Y street. Go into a vidphone booth, pick up a note taped underneath it. Then go to the bar it indicated.

So I get there to find otu of course everyone else 'took the normal route'. And just went straight from home to this downtown bar to meet wtih him in person.

Heh.

In the end the Fixer DID do alot more favours for me etc than he ever would for anyoen else. But buy god I started dreading his 'eccentric' ideas.

That's... the coolest thing ever.

Grit is just how the gamesmaster tells the story, it's in the descriptive language, it's what you do to stop this being a PG 13 action movie with the dude with the cool robotic arm and the pretty girl who casts fireballs at the big bad guy.

For instance, when we find a dead body, "you find a dead body, there's some blood", or we chuck on an extra 4 to the target number so we can go for that super cool headshot, there-by staging up damage one level and negating armor bonus. Oh check it, 4 successes! Staged to D! Yep, so we describe it as "he's dead before he hits the ground."

An example of how I handle "grit" is in the descriptions. On a Stealth Adept (Vaziel) I gm's way through a subway/sewer system, the waft or rust and blood toouched his nostrils. Upon further inspection, the body of a maintenance worker lay, ribcage jutting out from a torn and bloodied uniform, his dead eyes staring past Vaziel. As Vaziel realised he was standing in a pool of "John"'s viscera, he span at a noise, to see the milky eyes of a ghoul staring at him, blood caked his face. Vaziel's pistol was out in front of him and he pulled the trigger. The bullet caught the ghoul in the throat, sending him crashing to the ground at Vaziels feet. The ghoul was as good as dead, aside from the gurgling noises as the blood bubbled from the hole in his neck, and the clumsy clutching at Vaziels boot. Vaziel took aim and fired into the ghoul. The twitching stopped.

Take the time to describe the harsh world of Shadowrun, and try not to paint things too black and white.

Totally. But thats why in the end I allways will prefer a good MUSH game to pen and paper. You can just get... so much more discriptive. I mean yeah.. you can do it vocally too. But for me it's alot harder to do than typing up a good paragraph or two to describe my own actions, or those of others.

Maybe the sec guard's phone rings and you pick up to stifle the noise.
"Honey, what time are you coming home? Baby jacob just said his first word! He can't wait to show daddy? So --"
*runner hangs up*

"I'm coming home now. Where do we live again?" *Mute on* "Call the ghouls, we've got meat to sell."

More on the topic. Short version: Shadowrunners ruin lives for a living. If their mental well-being depends on not realizing this, they really should find another line of work.

~J

You know what I think? I know, you don't care, but anyhows... Too many kids raised on the old AFA suggestion to parents to use roleplaying as a tool to teach behaviour. I don't go to a shadowrun game to learn about morality. I play a gun slinging character in a world where everyone carries a weapon (look at any crowd scene in any of the books) living in the darkest of shadows, fighting against 'the man'. Now, I don't play as cold as Kagetenshi suggests, but I'm also not gonna roleplay a gut-wrenching puke scene over killing my first man, or break down into tears because some security guard left a 6 month old behind when he was killed for protecting an evil corp either.

I lean a bit more towards Road Warrior and Robocop, where the ones that strive to rise above get pulled under.

~J

i don't tend to go for depressing. depressing is... well, depressing. instead, i shoot for grim and bitter. if a character's brother dies (gay or not), i don't focus on the funeral, i focus on tracking down the fucker that killed him and making him pay.

This is the rule I go by: (repost)

Y'know, I remember reading that a while back, and liking the idea but disagreeing for reasons I couldn't put my finger on.

I thought about it for a while, and I realized that the reason I didn't like it was because it was the ideal that I've thus far been unsuccessful in realizing. I still don't pull it off properly, but I think you're pretty much right on the mark there.

~J

See, I love that. I love dark and gritty. I recently started a new campaign and to get everyone started I wrote a little campaign primer to detail recent events and sort of where they were at the beginning.
I don't want to go into too much detail 'cause it's not that important to the discussion, but the end result was some of my players reading it and saying "Man, I feel so hopeless, this just makes me want to roll over and die."
So I had to rewrite it. It was still dark and grim and gritty, but I had to add some glimmers of hope.
Sissies.

Do you have a copy of the original? I'd like to read it.

~J

I'm a GM, so I rarely get to play in my own games, and I've decided long ago the best way to get players is to run a game the players (at least think) they're enjoying. There are a few rules then that I've begun to run under.

If the players are kids, you need to give them bait. That's karma, cash and success. It doesn't have to come easy, but it needs to come eventually. Kids need to feel they're making progress, they need the money shot. Then, once they feel comfortable with themselves and the world they operate in, you blow the whole damn thing up and make them start again.

If the players are a little more experienced, you can temper it a little more. They'll provide their own motivations beyond cash and karma. They don't expect it to come easy and they can satiate themselves on the scraps you toss them. Grit in descriptions is basically a requirement (the young people won't pay attention and it might even keep them from reading the post at all, so keep it light with them). A feeling of desperation and depression (but not tear-jerker) should fill everything, but they usually want to feel they can achieve THEIR goals, whatever they may be. They generally want to feel stuff is personal, want to have a connection between the character and the world going on around them. Since I rarely game with experienced runners, this is mostly gathered from comments I've seen people put here.

I have reason to believe that there is a group beyond that, the true cyberpunk. These people expect nothing and give nothing. They're already broken and expect the world to be too. This is where true grit comes in, the true dance with insanity. Every action is futile. They get karma, but characters die too fast or are crippled too quickly to ever reach a plateau of success. Cash is spent faster than it comes in. By virtue of playing, they are automatically losing. They are in the worst conceivable distopian world, and the players are enjoying it. The world is a giant, stinky poop and they're just one maggot underneath it all. I suspect players at this level either get their gaming in small doses or require regular psychological evaluations. I only hope I too can, one day, game at this level of grit and philosophical impotence.


As for the ideas already suggested -
I'd enjoy playing Kesslan's game, assuming that playing family psychiatrist wasn't the core of the game. The NPCs should tie into the plot, but should not dominate it (like he suggested, I receive payment for a run that relates directly to my dependent NPCs or some such).

I agree with 2bit's summary, but like Kage, I don't think it is easily done in Shadowrun, and I can tell you why in one word: Magic. In cyberpunk (the genre and the game line), cyberware is selling your humanity for a clear personal advantage. It perfectly sums up what 2bit is suggesting. However in Shadowrun we have a third factor, magic. Players can pursue cyberware, bartering humanity and ability, or magic, where humanity IS ability. In SR, magic is really 'good' from almost any objective sense. It runs off of what is apparently limitless, environmentally friendly power, it's green, it makes the magic pixies happy, and it puts out more power than its mundane counterparts.

As a result, for game balance, the costs of cyberware had to be nerfed. You really don't lose much when you lose essence, you just lose magic and, for a while, you're about even with them.

If you want to make 2bit's ideas work, first fix magic. Magic is not gritty, it's happy bunnies (at least SR magic is). Make it dirty, expensive, dangerous. Then, once magic is available but shortens your life by a few years with every use, make cyberware as expensive as it should be. Then you maintain game balance and introduce grit.

The cyber- in cyberpunk is not cyberware. It is cyberspace. Cyberware is neither integral nor necessary to the cyberpuk genre. It is useful, yes, but not at all necessary. Megacorps and oppressive authorities aren't necessary, for that matter
The point of cyberpunk is how human social structures change in response to ubiquitous world-wide information and communications systems. It is about the global culture that forms when everyone and everything is interconnected and about the countercultures and sub-societies that form when people who have access to this world-wide infocom network choose to rebel against the increasingly standardized global norms.

Losing humanity is not at all necessary and losing humanity to cyberware is counterproductive. When one loses humanity in cyberpunk it should be lost to the whole of humanity, ironically. The conformist individual is reduced to a cog in the great machine because he chooses to subsume his individuality in exchange for an easy life within the global society. Hopeless then comes when that those who feel that they are rebelling against the system are, in fact, sacrificing their individuality to a different system and both systems are simply part of a larger whole.


As for grit, I'm going to reiterate my statement that grit in games depends on the lack of defined good and bad. Thus, the players are left to ask the question "if we aren't the good guys and we aren't the bad guys then who are we?"
Some will accept this and simply state "I'm the guy with the gun", accepting the amorality of the situation. Others will rebel against it and completely horrified when the see the damage that their actions cause or the damage that their refusal to act has caused. In the end, there must not be a single best choice, only many choices that are equally wrong in their own way.

Hyzamarca, I agree with your statements, but I do not feel they add or take away from mine. They're simply more broad.

In most cyberpunk stories (not all, but most), there is cyberware. In most cyberpunk stories and in the RPG line, cyberware reduces your humanity. It does not necessarily reduce it in the way you described it (although in some cases it does), but it most certainly does reduce it.

Where our two posts actually come to meet is when you say "As for grit, I'm going to reiterate my statement that grit in games depends on the lack of defined good and bad."

I would go one more and add that grit isn't just where an action is ethically ambiguous, but where its effectiveness is ambiguous, in other words, when you feel that anything you do may be completely futile. Saying nothing is clearly good or bad is rather soft, since I can say that right now about the real world, things are only good or bad depending on the subjective point of view. Grit is taking it the next step, assuming we've established the point of view and the ultimate "good" we are trying to achieve, any given action is ambiguously good or bad because it may not get us any closer to that goal, or may cost us another, equally valuable goal.

This is where 2bit's suggestion comes in, "anything your players consider a gain needs to come at a price. If they cheat this rule, karma comes to kick them in the ass later." His focus was specifically on losing your soul in order to achieve your ends (since obviously everyone can agree their soul is valuable, this still feeds into your point - if you finally get a secure lifestyle but lose your soul in the process, was it 'good' or 'bad'?)

Cyberware is a critical example to this, since every PC makes the choice about getting cyber or not. Cyber, unfortunately, is a decision where it is almost certainly "good" (assuming you can afford it and you're not magically active), and magic is almost certainly "good". I say, make them ambiguous. Neither cyber nor magic should be clearly and obviously good. They should give you a greater chance at succeeding at one personal goal, at a cost to another equally valuable one.


Does this make sense?

IMO, this brings up a need to find a way in which magic is dehumanizing, alienating, and soul-destroying. It also highlights the need for a little "Alienation" flavourtext on various types of cyberware indicating how the cyberware helps create a gulf between the possessor and the rest of humanity, and common ways that is expressed.

~J

My stories are depressing because they're so poorly written.


It would amuse me to no end if we had a fan-made Lovecraftian approach to magic where using magic makes you insane and evil.

You're a good writer, Wounded. Why and how are your campaigns shittily written?

The example that comes immediately to mind is how Johnny Mnemonic has to give up some of his childhood memories for disk space.

Initiation is a really good starting point for any dehumanizing aspects you want to introduce to your shadowrun magic. There are a lot of aspects introduced in the original Grimoire which you can introduce in very real ways to your game:

1 - Initiates devote their lives to magic. The closer they get to their tradition's Magic Ideal, the less like their original selves they become.

2 - Magic Groups - Require a group for initiation, and require each one to have a patron. I already do this in my games. Magic groups are fucking awesome. Make mortals beg, plead, cheat, plot, and scheme for arcane knowledge of the higher mysteries of magic. Magic groups can require anything of the PCs.

3 - Like initiation, metaplanar travel is mind-altering. Give the players a "bad trip" once in awhile. You can do anything to the players there, and it can affect them for life. Hand out edges and flaws. Tell them they have learned the free spirit's true name, but they now have no recollection of their father.

I always keep the trade-off in mind. The characters don't grow, they are shaped.

I tried to be gritty. I really did. I tried to do the whole hardcore mercenary, My Johnson needs a job done, another day another nuyen, hardcore in-your-face, get off my turf type game. I tried.

I need the fantasy good-vs-evil conflicts. I'm suffering withdraw symptoms. I see dark cultists everywhere I look and I'm pretty sure this nail I found on the street is a Holy Blade. It speaks to me. It tells me to do stuff. Stuff that's very, very... well, Good.

I'm going to have an apocalypse in my next run, damn it.

ew. to each their own...