Now that our current Seattle campaign is coming to a close, my players are bugging me to start a new one based in Neo-Tokyo.

Currently I'm going through all the sourcebooks I own to sort out what information is available on Japan and more specifically on Neo-Tokyo.

Although, information on current Tokyo is abundant on the web - Shadows of Asia sort of threw a wrench into the works on the plans. Especially the merger of the Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, and Chiba prefectures into a single prefecture.

A couple of questions for the SoA writers & experts:

1. What ward did the developers place the New Imperial Palace in?

2. What happened to the old Imperial Palace?

3. Currently 23 Special Wards are considered to comprise the Tokyo metropolis. With the merger of the prefectures, how many wards now comprise Neo-Tokyo?

See the spoiler for what information I could compile from SR and Web sources.



All ideas, information, comments, and or suggestions are welcome - especially since I'm a redneck and know next to nothing about Japan except for what I could find on the web or the anime & manga my players foisted on me as campaign inspiration.

Can't wait, eh?

Hrm... Is that reply implying that a sourcebook is in the works covering all this info? I wouldn't know since I have been around lately.

Link.

Ahh - I completely forgot about that sourcebook since I've been waiting for Unwired and Arsenal.

Thanks AH.

May I suggest the Sixth world Wiki. Topnotch site. Here's the link

Ancient I hate to challnge one so wise but your link seems broken.

Edit:
NM I'm wrong. Carry on, nothing to see here, just sweeping up my broken ego.

I'd forgotten about Corporate Enclaves too.

Are we in Q2 2007 now? *starts saving pennies for all the books that are due out*

back on topic: I was pointed at this site about Japanese Shadowrun by another thread on DS. The translation seems a bit hinky at times, but it goes into lots of detail and flavour.

Here's the link.

We can't answer questions about the Neo-Tokyo material that will be in Corp Enclaves, since it's still in development and all. I can say that I'm writing the Districts chapter and that I've done piles and piles of research first, much like I did with Hong Kong. But this time around I've also had feedback from the people who will be doing the Japanese translations of Shadowrun, so I've got local eyes on my writing too.

Well a lot of stuff in SR 4 seemed to be very politically correct to be honest, and that's a problem when it comes to dealing with things like this.

One of the problems with being the most civilized and enlightened culture in the history of the world is our tendency in the US to be critical of our own policies and place in the world. A lot of The SR stuff seems like it was written by our own internal dissidents in the US as opposed to making any effort to be realistic or accurate, especially when such depictions would not be very flattering to many of the nations that are the subject of the book, our would interfere with some of the conveyed criticisms of the US.

In general I very much doubt Asia would get it's act together anything like what is shown in the books. For starters your dealing with a setting where everything is being "built up" and all of these nations are supposed to basically be pulling the resources to revitalize themselves out of their keisters. I understand the sentiments that the US is a greedy resource sponge, IRL, but also understand that resources like wood, oil, plastic, minerals, and other things are fought over (sometimes quite ruthlessly) because they are in limited supply, and also in many cases quite finite, at the same time demand is increasing. One of the issues in global geo-economics is that a fair distribution of planetary resources among the population would put everyone well below what we consider to be the poverty level, and the standard of living enjoyed in places like Europe and the US would be a think of the past, until the inevitable global resource collapse that would force everyone to go without as such distribution of resources would prevent any society from being advanced enough to try and solve the overall problems.

One of the reasons why Asia is so depressed is that even if they were able to change the flow of resources from The West to The East (as you see China doing now) there are simply too many people there to ever see a true cultural transformation. In a day and age where SARS started due to people sharing living space with their own livestock, your not going to see a technological transformation in less than a century, even with the resource replentishment brought on by the return of magic.

Not to mention the fact that Asia isn't exactly known for it's progressive thought. Without The American Military able to sit there and play bodyguard, I very much doubt Japan would last very long for example. Not to mention the fact that with the way things played out I'd imagine you would have seen the Asian corps get totally WTFpwned by the Europeans (as opposed to Europe just playing home to the biggest corperation).

Sure, you see some things about Japan's attitude towards Metahumans, and of course their returning attitude towards outsiders, but consider that as soon as the USA (or UCAS) became weak enough that it had to withdraw, you'd see the SDF getting eaten alive by enraged Koreans and Chinese. A military doesn't build itself and Japan is more or less defenseless without the US occupation forces (which is intentional).

We won't even get into China's attitudes about "The Middle Kingdom" (which takes it's name from being between Heaven and Earth) and need for living space which wouldn't be changed by corperations.

Without getting too offensive, I'd imagine Asia would have degerated to internal warfare between bumbling neo-barbarian states if this was handled realistically as opposed to through the eyes of a Politically Correct Asiaphille.

I'm an anime fan (as an extension of my love of Fantasy and Science Fiction) but I've never been a Japanaphille or Asiaphille. I've just seen and learned things that have prevented me from ever developing in that direction. This isn't to say that The East doesn't have it's good points, but it's not exactly what many people's romantic notions would have you think.

-

At any rate when you ignore cultural backwardness though the majority of the region (there are some very well educated and civilzed Asians, but this is still one of the most ignorant and undereducated portions of the world), political facism, and the realistic speed at which resources could be gathered, assembled, and turned into an infrastructure... or basically all sense of realism. The depiction of Japan isn't bad. Especially from the perspective of weird obsessions and the like.

The portryal of Japan basically seems to be a portrait assembled by a hard core Anime Fanboy who wishes he could live there, with a bit of classic xenophobia put in for aggressive flavor and "attitude". I suppose it's better than basically saying that the whole area is dead, uninhabitable, or being fought over by other surrounding nations to decide who gets the right to occupy it's carcass.

I suppose if your taking realism out of the picture the idea of them condensing the prefractures would not be out of like. I mean even in Anime (you can tell a little bit about the people from their pop culture, though it doesn't make you an expert) there are some implications that the system is considered antiquidated and obselete. Condensing the regions into fewer (but larger) zones would make sense, especially from the perspective of the corperations who might be making these kinds of desicians for all intents and purposes without having to abide by
the will of the people or any sense of tradition.

As far as calling it "Neo Tokyo" that term has been used in a bunch of Anime, and I guess kind of fits with the vibe that the writer wanted to convey. I'm guessing the xenophobia was brought into the picture largely to keep the setting "Japanese" and not having to worry too much about what outside influances would do there, and thus allow it to remain more 'pure' to the Anime vision.

All told the Neo-Tokyo portion is at least understandable. The bit on Singapore had me going "WTF?". I just can't see "The Cesspool Of The Orient" being cleaned up and having any kind of infrastructure built up there that quickly under any circumstances. Especially seeing as any resources (oil, metals, etc...) being brought into The East would be earmarked for China or (if we accept it) Japan. Places like Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, etc... would just continue to be strangled. Even corperatly speaking "their" corps are simply outgunned by the rest of them.

Don't flame me over this, it's just an opinion, and (in general) I tend to have more negative things to say than positive. On the good stuff I remain more or less silent for the most part.

I see it as being sort of like how "back in the day" people were looking at some of the European sourcebooks with disbelief and there seemed to be a bit of one upsmanship between the guys writing France and Germany to declare each other horrible cesspools of death and corruption, wasted in the new world order.

Whether people like it or not (or feel it's arrogant) The USA is pretty much the one true hope for earth. When you get down to it, every people is Fierce, Independant, and Proud of their history. Noone wants to fall by the wayside or feel trivialized.

Unfortunatly, the USA is pretty much the only country that has made any serious inroads towards human co-existance on any level. While heavily critized, consider that other nations that call themselves "civilized" like China or Japan are pretty much ethnically pure, where all the people living there share that history and culture to some extent. Sure there are tensions, but you just don't see them working through the problems with empowered minority groups and such like happens in the USA. Indeed many nations are afraid of democracy specifically
for this reason. Even nations that are close to the US in freedom (Australia, The UK, Canada) fall far short on a lot of levels. You don't have the equivilents of "Jessie Jackson" and "Al Sharpton" wielding the same amount of power as they do in the USA for the most part.

In the final analysis the US might oppress a lot of people, but in the end if we solved global resource problems (through space travel, etc..) our ethics are such that we would uplift the rest of the planet and humanity would eventually move on as a whole. Nations like China, or even many in Europe, would pretty much maintain the oppression and do everything for the Chinese, the French, etc... and in the long term the rest of us would only wind up being second class citizens.

Interestingly enough the state of the USA in Shadowrun has ultimatly removed the greatest beacon of hope on the planet, and even with the universal business interest of corps, I'm not quite sure if the writers fully understand what that means. Right now it's only American military forces (overtly, or covertly) staving off genocide through a lot of the world. If America ever ceased to be a superpower, or fell from power the way was presented in Shadowrun (to the NAN) the echoes through the world would be ghastly, both in the short term and long term.

A feeding frenzy of bloodthirsty genocidal vengeance launched at Japan would only be the tip of the iceberg. There is more to the hatred of Japan than just World War II and that's one grudge I just don't see going away within a hundred years or less. Right now people simply play nice in that region because our military prescence (especially naval) in the region is huge. People dialogue with Japan and talk about apologies for atrocities because they can't very well invade with the dominant world power playing bodyguard (even if the situation is a bit more complicated than us just being 'national bodyguards' we're also occupiers in more than one sense).




>>>----Therumancer--->

Oh my God!

I admire your pride of Nation, Therumancer. I hope it won't hurt too much when you come down off that high. As dear friends to the North, we look upon you guys sometimes with admiration, sometimes with fear, and sometimes we have no *$*%^ing clue what to think of you.

As the only comment appropriate to make in this forum, you might consider the fact that those who live in a powerful empire often don't know much about the rest of the world, simply because they don't have to. Some things you say in comparing the USA to others suggests you live in just such a bubble.

You make some interesting points about how the world might really turn out if the Pax Americana were to end. Worth thinking about.

I'd generally agree with you about the lack of information Pbangarth, if we weren't living in "The Information Age" where one of the biggest problems facing us today is people with too much information, combined with issues of censorship and reinventionism (and who makes those desicians and why).

Right now while many countries believe they have a relatively free press and such the US (despite political slanting) comes the closest. What's more America is active all over the world. I for example am in Connecticut where we have a Major Submarine base and as such a lot of my opinions on Asia are tempered by the experiences of those who served down there. I went through a period where I came close to being a Japanaphille of sorts, but I was cured of that pretty quickly, and saw a lot of proof of many things I was told about through videos and photographs brought back by those who served down there.

Ultimatly we will have to agree to disagree, but I became extremely nationalist about the time I grew out of my liberal phase. In the end every nation is proud and would ultimatly like to see their culture being the one to dominate the planet and move into the future. There are no exceptions.

The thing is that for all of the criticisms they might make about the US, how many empowered minorities do you see even in places like France or Germany? If you go there and walk down the street nearly everyone you see is French or German. In China nearly everyone you see is Chinese. If you see anyone not of the dominant ethnic type it sticks out because it's uncommon, and the further you get away from tourist areas the less common it becomes. In the US you can pretty much find someone of nearly any ethnicity in any area if you look. Then there is an issue of empowerment, when is the last time China seriously had it's black community acting as a political force? For the most part nations with ethnic problems are "single issue". Like Australia has there thing with their natives (Aboriginals) and the "Tent Embassy" and all that. In the US we're dealing with pretty much every issue on the planet all the time, everyone gets a say to some degree, and somehow we make all of this work. Noone else in the world can say the same thing, or even has the intention of making the attempt. This is what puts us a head and shoulders above other nations, and ultimatly places us beyond criticism for the most part. I feel that to Criticize the USA you would have to deal with the same level of constant issues for a century or more, and function at least as well as we have, to even be able to give a fair opinion.

Otherwise, there really isn't an "American Empire". Sure we spread ideas and business through the world, but that isn't the same thing. For the most part, rather than expanding, we spend most of our time trying to prevent everyone from killing each other and fix problems. Yes, we *DO* make sure we take the biggest peace of the pie, and we can be quite nasty about maintaining out standard of living, but what do you expect? We never claimed to be anything but capitolists.

At any rate if you slogged through this, the issue isn't just what would happen if America was suddenly out of the picture as peacekeepers. The issue is also resources.

Cities like "New York" and "Los Angelos" didn't appear overnight, they are what they are also because they were built from a pretty solid base to begin with. Refurbishing a city is a lot harder than building one from scratch and updating it, especially when your dealing with the pretty low tech level some of the cities in Asia began with. I mean when your dealing with stonework that might have been there for a thousand years (before the US was founded) your going to have some issues. A bit more than clearing out log cabins and pouring concrete (which is arguably what happened in some cases with the US, we've only been here a little over 200 years).

What's more, you have to ask where these resources are coming from. To build "The American Lifestyle" it's a pretty valid crticism that we've done a job on the global resources. Between us and Europe we can account for a lot of the global mineral and wood clearance, as well as industrial pollution and the like. As any "greenpeacer" can tell you, the earth's enviroment is already straining to maintain what we have.

Even with a "fresh start" of sorts from resource restoration, trying to build nations like China, and the city of Singapore into these Futuristic megalopolises in a period of a couple of decades defies belief. Especially when you consider the resources going into Aztlan, The Tirs, The NAN, etc... Your dealing with a much larger number of people and construction beyond what the earth is already straining to support. Corps included, understand that nations like Aztlan are not going to be sharing their Rainforest Timber and the like as easily as they are now because of empowerment through magic.

Look at the oil crisis in The Middle East, not just getting oil, but wondering how long before it's all gone. Even if a "reset" button was bit on the oil fields, your still dealing with a situation where the level of industrialization spread among more countries is going to deplete it at record levels. One of the current issues with oil is that while America might Guzzle it, if China was ever to fulfill it's goal and get the majority of their population driving (even with super eco-friendly cars) they would use up the oil at something like 10x the rate of the rest of the driving world combined, even assuming it could be pulled out of the ground that fast.

I understand Shadowrun is fantasy, my point is that they could stand to be a bit more realistic in the politics and industrialization rather than saying that with (rare exceptions) nearly every country or area we've heard at has become powerful, relevent, and advanced to some degree. It's also unrealisitc to assume that just because there are Corps holding the economic reins that large scale violence isn't going to erupt without a real peacekeeper. I mean The Japanese were apparently doing experiments on "subhumans" (by their standards) like The Koreans that made infamous Nazis like Doctor Megela look like humanitarians. There was a thing loosely based on historical fact in a Korean Manga called "Island" that touched on this. I for some reason doubt stuff like this is going to be forgotten. Not to mention those little "massive scale rape and sex slavery" incidents perpetuated by The Japanese on China during the same time period. The nations, and the corps which emulate the culture of those nations, would probably be blowing the stuffing out of each other.


Sorry if that offends or upsets anyone, especially seeing a pro-Americanism isn't very popular (even in the US) but I feel it's a relevent point of view. I like Shadowrun just fine with the way it is, but I do wish they would take the time to think out the world situation a bit better. I for one can't see any way that Singapore (for example) would change that much, so quickly. Lee family (and major seaport) aside.

>>>----Therumancer--->

I disagree with Therumancer quite a bit, but don't have the time yet to write up a proper reply.

I will say that lots of creative liberties were taken with Asia (and everything else) in all stages of Shadowrun's development. It's a game, after all, not a dissertation.

Just about every country you care to name has at some point been guilty of some sort of violation of human rights. American soldiers didn't exactly behave themselves in the Mexican-American War, for example, by the admission of some of our own military leaders of the day. Oh, and then there was that whole li'l thing about being pretty much the last "modern" western nation to get rid of slavery, and our treatment of the native American population wasn't so hot either. I say this not to bash Americans, but to point out the simple fact that well, people, culture and times can change considerably, and that holds true for ANY nation as long as they're willing to make those changes. Now, I understand your misgivings about the Japanese in regards to their continued whitewashing of the atrocities committed during WWII and the Sino-Japanese Wars, but that doesn't necessarily mean such nations are chained to their attitudes and history forever, especially within the context of a sci-fi/fantasy game set decades into the future. And anyway, I'd be curious about doing runs in Tokyo, not because of any affection for Japanese culture, but because the security would most likely be absolutely insane.

Yeah the material on Neo-Tokyo bugged me too. I could not find any way whatsoever to ever justify sending my group to Japan which was annoying because it is home to the HQ of 3 megacorporations. Now at least it can be done without half the group being caught and sent to the Phillipines just for breathing.

If Cheops were talking about the average person, yeah, I'd say he was definitely exagerrating. But since we're talking about runner teams, for all practical purposes, he's really not too far off the mark, at least according to the old books. I mean, let's face it, what are the odds that your runner team isn't guilty of some crime at any given time? Even in Seattle the average SINless runner breaks god knows how many laws simply by using a fake ID to pick up a quick soy shake and fries, the only saving grace really is that Seattle in general is too corrupt to care about a few runners unless they're trying to pull something really outlandish. Smiling Jack really hit the nail on the head- the problem was not so much that Neo-Tokyo was really such a perfectly locked down bubble of airtight security, rather, it just never quite met the certain base level of corruption that needs to be present for shadowrunners to make sense at all. The old Neo-Tokyo setting never gave the feeling that there were enough seedy people greasing the wheels to keep the shadow world primed and ready for action. The corps simply did too good of a job of being the only game in town, and they were not to be trifled with. That's why the only Neo-Tokyo based games I've heard of have been almost exclusively concerned with inside jobs and clever betrayals quickly followed by getting the hell out of the country

The main issues I'd see is that you need really good contacts in Japan to get firearms of any source and that you stick out. Assuming you have sufficiently good forged documents to get though Japanese customs without using your real ID they should be good enough for any likely need inside Japan.

But yeah, you'd want to avoid concepts that had the runners in a running gun battle with anyone. Subtlety and quiet professionalism would seem like the way to go.

Until you have players like mine who want to play street samurai, ex-corpers, gangers, and yakuza mixed in with the various supernatural types .... all in Tokyo.

Hell - all standard fare for SR right? Sure, no problem running them as seasoned professionals in Tokyo. Until they told me - "Hey, we want something a little lower on the totem pole - something like gang wars, mob wars, etc."

Thankfully that list of stuff from SoA that I outlined earlier gives me a starting point. With the relaxed gun laws on Kyushu - I can at least provide a cannon reason why crimes involving guns is spiking in Tokyo as well.

Neo-Tokyo is always going to have a different feel than Seattle. That's why it'll be in Corp Enclaves as opposed to Runner Havens. In the various sprawl books, we mean to show that different sprawls have different power structures and that will change how the shadows operate in each. Running in a "runner haven" will differ from running in a "corp enclave" and both will differ from running in a "feral city."

We are opening the shadows of Neo-Tokyo up more, providing more internal conflict that breeds shadow business. But at the same time, the corporations (particularly the Japanacorps) are the Powers-That-Be in Neo-Tokyo and whether a shadowrunner can operate there will depend a lot on who is backing his work. This might be a bit of a foreign concept to a Seattle or Hong Kong runner, but that's the way of the biz in Neo-Tokyo.

Tokyo and Japan as a whole was never attractive to me and my group because of their racism towards metahumans. And non-japanese runners stick out of the mass pretty well, what makes it easy for the police and corps to track them.
Does this change in Corp Enclaves a bit?

Onmyōdō recognizes five elements, which makes its segregation into five spirit types pretty easy. Their spirits are called shikigami, and indeed there is historical precadent for hem being materialization or possession spirits. Personally, I'd make them into possession spirits so that you would have an excuse to make folded paper bodies for them - because those look awesome. It's totally sweet looking so I say go with it.

Also, you'll want to have the shikigami invoke Shamanic Mask on whatever they possess, so they look like demons, and only turn into paper dolls when disrupted or their services end.

As to the shikigami you have, you've got:

Wood (Plant - Detection)
Water (Water - Combat)
Metal (Guardian - Manipulation)
Earth (Earth - Illusion)
Fire (Fire - Health)

And since it's all pseudo-science and divination, the Onmyōdō resist Drain with Logic. All the stuff about having your spirit leave your body is straight up Astral Projection. Making Shikigami with a portion of your soul who can take many different forms including your own is Ally Creation Metamagic. Geomancy is Geomancy, Divination is Divnation.

So an Onmyoji is a magician of a Possession Tradition. They aspire to the metamagics of Divination, Geomancy, and Ally Spirit. They use Logic as a Drain stat.

-Frank

Mucho thanks Frank!

I had completely forgotten about that paper doll stuff, its even in the reference mangas my players foisted off onto me.

You went an entirely different direction than I envisioned - but I likes it.

In general, magical traditions are varied enough that you can make a very compelling case for multiple different types of spirit assignments. Wood Shikigami could just as easily be Health and Fire Detection - but that's treading on the toes of other already existing traditions pretty hard.

So whereever I had a real choice of where to assign something, I went with the choice that makes things more different. Metal Shikigami have a thing where they cut people into pieces - which could easily enough be represented with Combat Spells. But Metal Shikigami being Guardian Spirits means that they could just cut people up with their normal attacks - and Guardian Spirits do Combat spells in a lot of traditions already. So I went a bit further afield, and apparently Metal Shikigami have the ability to make people feel really sad. I went with that and they end up being the teachers of Manipulation spells.

The end result is something that stays true to as much of the source material as possible within the rules and is still distinctly different from the other available traditions.

-Frank

Upon further reflection - I ended up changing the tradition to reflect its absorption, merger, and commonality with Shinto as well as those aspects inherited from Wuxing (ie.. replaced Taoist Gods with Shinto belief and relation with the kami).

The Onmyodo Tradition

Concept: Literally ‘the way of yin and yang.’ An ancient form of Japanese magical practice, combining imported Wuxing philosophy and practices (such as ying and yang and the 5 elements) with native Japanese Shinto beliefs and rituals. Onmyoji, the practicioners of Onmyodo, are those gifted by the kami (spirits and gods) with the ability to wield the natural energies of magic as well as the ability to summon and control shikigami (lesser spirit servants).

Combat: Water
Detection: Plant
Health: Fire
Illusion: Earth
Manipulation: Guidance
Drain: Willpower + Logic
Note: Materialization Tradition

Like Wuxing, this variation of Shinto ties mana to the concept of ki. Onmyoji often use complex rituals and formula to change the state of ki to what they desire, but they are also known to use techniques of divination, geomancy, meditation, and martial arts.

Onmyodo belief dictates that onmyoji are go-betweens bridging the celestial world and material plane. Theirs is the sacred calling to maintain the delicate balance between the two with the help of their shikigami. Onmyoji appease tensions and punish transgressions; some are even charged with the eradication of yokai (apparitions, spirits, or demons) at large in the Sixth World.

Shikigami come in all varieties - when materialized, most have visual clues that tie them to their element but they tend to appear as child-sized oni (japanese demons), humanoid, or mythical creatures. It is also common for onmyoji to summon the spirits of their own ancestors and consult their wisdom or petition their aid. Like other followers of Shinto, onmyoji use many ritual tools in their magic, including haraigushi, a wand covered in paper streamers used to purify an area, and ofuda, paper prayer strips used for good luck or deal with malicious spirits.

The adoption of mentor spirits is rare among onmyoji, but there are some who follow in the paths of the those kami that both protect and fight.

Twisted onmyoji are said to receive their power from the magatsuhi-no-kami (dark kami) instead.

As a sect of Shinto, Onmyobo has spread wherever the JIS reaches.

I'm trying my absolute best to avoid tripping into Theru's little playpen of arrogance, so I'm going to skip right over how truly wrong and warped his worldview is.

Neo-Tokyo in 2070 would be a damned interesting setting, and I personally can't wait to see that sourcebook.

Oh, Denicalis, oh.

By even mentioning it, as I did earlier, you tripped.