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Blade
Actually if you want your descriptions to convey some meaning to your players don't go into the details of how things looks, but just describe small details and items that will add a lot to the atmosphere.

Describing the layout of the bar isn't really interesting (except if there's going to be some action) but describing that the barman is quickly rinsing the glasses with a black/brownish water, that the floor is sticky, that the tables are blackened with ash and cigarette burns will help your players imagine the whole place and help them feel the atmosphere.
Kyoto Kid
...If it's a place they're going into the first time, I do give a brief description of the layout/clientele (like the quirky little underground bar in Vienna they went to in the last session RiS) After all, if something breaks out, the characters then have some idea of which table to duck behind or who is shooting at them. For the most part though I do to try to generate more of a general "atmosphere" of the place.

For "regular" haunts, after the first time I run it, I usually dispense with any details unless something there is something out of the ordinary.
DuckEggBlue Omega
The situations described seem almost the complete opposite of what I'm used to. In our group, the other players and I have a tendency to declare we are 'scoping the place out (in detail)' before the GM even gets to decide whether or not he's describing it. This happens when you have a GM who thinks details are important, but describing them to players isn't.

As for adding life to a campaign, I really wanted to see if I can use the Super Perforator clip from Manitou's Shoe as part of an ad campaign for a new line of budget APDS. I also did a write up for my home town once, but seeing as one of the major premises of it was why it was the only state capital NOT mentioned Target: Awakened Lands, it's wouldn't be very useful.
stevebugge
QUOTE (Shinobi Killfist)
[QUOTE=stevebugge,Jul 11 2007, 09:47 AM] [QUOTE=Rotbart van Dainig,Jul 10 2007, 08:02 AM] [QUOTE=mfb,Jul 10 2007, 05:51 PM]
Generally speaking though if the GM has put some work in to describing a setting the players owe it to the GM to try to pay attention, after all that is the GM's chance to roleplay and interact with the game. Players should pay attention to descriptions of Locations and NPC's the way they expect the GM to pay attention to their descriptions of their character and actions. This needs to be made clear OOC when establishing the game, but if it's a continual problem some IC consequences can be appropriate. [/QUOTE]
Sure, and the GM owes it to the players not to overdo the descriptions. In your club example while that sounds nice, its basically what I've hear or read in every single club description ever since I started playing SR back in 1e. There does come a point where the players are, going to say or think. Yes, Yes I get it, were in a club.

Its a tough line to navigate for both the players and the GMs. When is it too much flavor text from the GM, when is their player spending to much time describing an action. How any times do you need to describe the bar where the players bartender contact works before you start short handing it.

That's where the balance has to be struck. Long winded descriptions of recurring locations get old. If it's a regular recurring location the GM probably should try to keep the description to something like:

"It's a slow night at your regular wateringhole and your regular booth is open"

And even descriptions of new locations can be badly overdone, we have one guy in our group who's an aspiring novelist and he sometimes has pre-written page long descriptions of locations that he wants to read, sometimes they are worth it, sometimes not so much. But when it gets to be too much we usually ask him out of character if he can condense it a little.

Setting Details can be important though and add alot to the game action when it comes around, think about some of the crazy fights in "Rumble in the Bronx" where Jackie Chan is busy kicking butt with all sorts of random stuff in the gang's hideout, it is important for the players to know if there are 13 old refridgerators lining the wall in that case.
Talia Invierno
For a quick shortcut --

"You know that bar from Collateral? No, not that one, the one where the good-guy cop gets killed outside?"

There's an easy starting point: especially if the players do want to choose a regular watering hole. Pick your popular film. Amend details as necessary.
TheMadDutchman
I love stealing locations.

I'm planning on putting a Jackrabbit Slims in my SR game (I've got the special edition Pulp Fiction that included the menu)

There's one other location I really love, but I don't know enough about magic to know if it would actually work. I've played a lot of SR and even run a few games but I've never really played an awakened characters and I've never had one in any of the games I've run. The location I'm considering is: the Oblivion Bar (I probably won't end up using it- or at least getting rid of the whole metaplane teleportation thing because I'm pretty sure it wouldn't make sense w/ the way magic works in SR). If any of you are unfamiliar w/ the Oblivion then you need to pick up Shadowpact from DC.
DuckEggBlue Omega
Well, in complete ignorance of the Oblivion Bar, rather than having a metaplanar travel thing (though you COULD have an astral quest to a meta plane that was limited in scope to a bar) you could follow the line of something like the coffin clubs and have a bar for astral entities and projecting mages. Maybe it's even an astral construct somewhere that can only be reached via astral travel, and they serve Karma Daiquiri's and Essense Ale.
Synner667
QUOTE (Eleazar)
One thing a lot of new people to SR and maybe even veteran players don't have is a grasp of cyberpunk culture and setting. Currently I am one of those. To help alleviate the problem I am reading the Sprawl Trilogy by William Gibson. This trilogy is iconic and significant in establishing cyberpunk. Gibson was the first to ever use terms like cyberspace and the matrix. I have just finished Chapter 2 of "Neuromancer", the first in the trilogy, and I must say I am impressed. There are also some good movies out there like Blade Runner and Johny Mnemonic. For Blade Runner you can also read the book it was based on by Phillip K. Dick called "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". "Ghost in the Shell" is also a great anime which I recommend, and I don't even like anime. Sunnyside made an allusion to "Mirror Shades" by Bruce Sterling. Then again it could have been an allusion to the Sprawl Trilogy because one of the characters in the book has glasses describes as mirror shades.

These books are the foundation that was built and allowed games like Shadowrun to exist. You will find out that Shadowrun has taken very liberally from all these books, most especially the Sprawl Trilogy. This is apparent to me and I just finished Chapter 2 of "Neuromancer". Getting yourself acquainted with the setting is a great step towards being capable of enriching it.

Hi,

Neuromancer is the 2nd book in a quadrology [set of 4], and is often overlooked..
..The 1st being Burning Chrome, which is a book of short stories - It contains Johnny Mnemonic, which is about Molly Millions and the chap she refers to in Neuromancer.

Things in the short stories get referenced throughout the Sprawl Trilogy - which I re-read every year and is still amazing.

Though the Bridge Trilogy is good in a different way.

Mirrorshades is an anthology of Cyberpunk stories, and worth reading.


Just my thruppence..
Synner667
QUOTE (DuckEggBlue Omega)
Well, in complete ignorance of the Oblivion Bar, rather than having a metaplanar travel thing (though you COULD have an astral quest to a meta plane that was limited in scope to a bar) you could follow the line of something like the coffin clubs and have a bar for astral entities and projecting mages. Maybe it's even an astral construct somewhere that can only be reached via astral travel, and they serve Karma Daiquiri's and Essense Ale.

Callaghan's Bar, perchance ??

It seems to be separate from reality, and connects to anywhere/anywhen.


Just my thruppence..
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (TheMadDutchman)
I love stealing locations.

...I do that from RL all the time.

For example In my current campaign there is a cheeky little bar in Vienna named "Die Untersatz" which is modeled after a tavern in my home town called Ringler's Annex. This intimate night spot is completely underground in the cellar of a triangular shaped building. You enter through a stairwell set into the pavement. This joint was a favourite haunt of mine until they started doing DJ Spins & went to "full bar" service (they used to be a Port wine & cigar bar) Much of the inspiration for my Rhapsody in Shadow campaign came to me while sitting there sipping a fine vintage for it felt almost Euro Film Noir complete with acoustic jazz and Bistro music in the background and most of the lighting supplied by scores of candles.

I translated the original setting almost verbatim for the campaign.
TheMadDutchman
Well, having taken a good look at Magic in SR I've decided that I won't be using the Oblivion.

Earlier in this thread some people talked about using music. Now, I dismissed this idea because it always seems to distract my groups but I do use music when I'm working on my game.

One of my favorate cds for working on SR: Mob Hits. Seriously, it's great. All the songs come from mob movies.
Hypatia
I like to do news handouts from INN. I include daily weather, traffic jams, politics, sports, music as well as news. My husband gets the actual locals from Google earth to show terrain, etc.

I get pictures from magazines for my important npcs and Johnsons. Plus pictures of hotel lobbies, eateries, etc. I have found deviant art to have great pictures of macrabe creatures and ghouls. It shortens the time on descriptions and you know everyone is seeing the same thing in their head.

Food is a must. It's easy for me to whip up appropriate munchies. As for music, I like soundtracks with little words. Radio doesn't really do.

We use minatures from all over to depict the right scene. I have even had my son use his legos to depict buildings and such. He is always happy to build stuff for me.

Using butcher paper on the table allows us to easily draw up something, like a symbol or such and easy to draw a quick sketch of a layout to scale with the figures.

Being a scrapbooker, I employ my tools and add a little to the pictures.

As a result we have three ring notebooks of npcs, contacts, places etc. One for each. We have layouts of team member's homes and even furniture. Ikea catalog helps there.

We also have a notebook for gaming history, and it gets very detailed. Some of it reads like short stories. As a result we don't have a hard time keeping up with the date.

THis is so common in our games it's weird not to have it now.
bardnoir
I have a system similar to TheMadDuchman in that I use music, however I make mix CDs and often label them "combat", "night club", "back ground".
I use Pop or Techno for clubs (depending on the club) and slow rock or alternative for background (depending on the mood) while guitar driven or hard core rap is used for combat.

I also made a habit of taking two current and popular actors and making a hybrid name for the new SimStar and often have people ask about the new Sim. The players can easily play along. One of my favorites was when someone asked a character/player in a club (they were waiting for a contact to show up so I RPed the event) if they'd seen any good movies he respond "No, but I've been waiting for that new Jackie Li forever... what's it called?" I quickly came up with a title like Mortal Kombat Thirteen and we carried on. I think three games later they were in an electronics store with the decker meeting with a contact and a different player just said "You know what, my guy's bored. He's going to see if the new Jackie Li movie ever came out." this turned into a funny scene where the character almost got into a fight over the movie because he wouldn't sell the last copy that he was keeping for himself. I always let the players add something to the game, not only does it let them feel more involved but it often lets them just "know" what's out there by simply making it up. They never ask me "What's a soda I can ask for?" they just go "Give me a 46 oz. Jolt Cola 3000!" and then late I'll make up an annoying new NPC who talks really fast and buys Jolt Cola 3000 by the case.

I also use NPCs for flavor as well. Being an actor of sorts I can do a few impressions to the point that one of my players, at some point will ask "Would Christopher Walken happen to be the Mafia Boss!?!" or "Oh, is the Stuffer shack clerk Al Bundy?!?" even without these you can use even a bad impersonation to have a colorful NPC - I can't actually a decent Chris Tucker to save my life, but it didn't stop me from having a re-occurring NPC that was always trying to sell them a watch or some "herbs"
TheMadDutchman
I definately agree w/ following a players lead on flavor issues (such as the jolt cola 3000)

There are 2 exceptions to this:
1: If the player is just being stupid (or that I just construe the player as being stupid) usually this is 1 in the same. I'm completely cool w/ people joking around at my table and making jokes about my game. Gaming is supposed to be fun. What I won't stand is for a player to just outright mock my game and there is a difference. Sometimes the difference can be hard to tell but you should usually be able to tell when the jokes at your games expense are good natured or not.

2: If the road the player is trying to lead me down could have major relevance to my plot. It sometimes can be hard to spot- especially if you've never had it happen to you before but some players will try to use a number of seemingly unrelated and seemingly "flavor only" aspects of their characters to actually empower their characters in a way that they plan to "defeat my world or plot". At this point this item is almost a non-sequitor because I don't game w/ people like that anymore.


Also, to clarify I typically don't use music during my games (I find it often to be distracting) I do use a lot of media (music, movies, tv) while planning sessions.

However, I have come up w/ an idea that might make me experiment w/ music again at the game table. What I've thought about is just using sound bytes. For example if the group goes to a club start playing music appropriate to the environment and use this while introducing the location and reading any prepared descriptions. As soon as I'm done "setting the scene" or even as soon as the player jumps in w/ an action I'll cut the music so it doesn't interfere.
kzt
I've seen really clever GMs handle the player doing clever tricks. Like the player who had the "Starship Enterprise" on his equipment sheet, which the GM approved. At an appropriate time the GM casually pointed out that the player didn't have a communicator on his equipment sheet. Another time the GM figured out the clever trick we were doing and shut us down about the time we were going to spring it on him. Though I have no idea anymore what it was, I remember being really impressed that he both figured out what we were edging towards and put together a coherent reason why it wouldn't work.

But it's hard and you have to think a few steps ahead of the players. But most players I've played with wouldn't have pushed it too hard anyhow.
bardnoir
QUOTE (kzt)
I've seen really clever GMs handle the player doing clever tricks. Like the player who had the "Starship Enterprise" on his equipment sheet, which the GM approved.

I would have just called it a diecast miniature of the Starship Enterprise and left it at that.

I've played a lot of toon, (side tracking here) and if there is one thing you learn from playing "Toon" it's how to think on your feet. The idea behind "Toon" is to actually act before you think. You have to jump around from player to player asking "And what do you do?" if they take more than a few seconds to respond they are clearly thinking and by the rules you get to say "You're stunned and can do nothing." and jump to the next player.

It gets wild and you often end up allowing someone to pull items you suddenly don't want working so the mega laser runs out of batters or the giant sponge soaks up so much water it grows until it fills the room... etc.

If a player doest try to improve something in my game that I can't come up with a quick witted solution for I often just shake my head and laugh saying "yeah! I don't think so." I laugh again (I mean they just HAD to joking right? No way could they have been serious about that! Right!?!) and get back on track.
Kyoto Kid
...on the topic of background music, it can work to help the setting or be a big distraction depending on how the GM uses it.

Many years ago I was involved in a "loosely" run (read heavily house ruled) version of The Game that shall not be mentioned where the GM used music to set the basic mood for the adventure. He usually put on a soundtrack record (shows you how long ago that was grinbig.gif) at the outset of the session that related to the theme of the impending adventure. After the side played itself out, the rest of the session went on sans music.

This worked quite well to get everyone into the "feeling".

I have been in other games where GMs/DMs resorted to using music for very major scene change. This I find distracting as it seemed the GM as more into the playlist than the adventure/mission

Personally I use music very sparingly if at all in SR. I usually give a description of the type of music that is playing (e.g. 1930's Styled Jazz, NukeSlam, Klingon Opera biggrin.gif etc) and let the players come up with their own "images". In the campaign I am currently running I did actually use a recording (A Chopin Etude) during a scene which was specific to the situation at hand.
TheMadDutchman
I'm all for just laughing it off if we're all just having a good time. The problem is that I've gamed w/ a lot of pricks who like to push the limits just to have the most powerful characters in the universe so they can around saying how cool they are and how they broke my game. That's why I take a very hard line w/ people doing what I see as taking advantage of my game.

I did come up w/ another cd for those of you who like to work w/ music: Duke Nukem; Music to Score By. (I think that's what it's called). I've had the cd for years but didn't think about mentioning it until today when I was listending to the Type O Negative cover of Cinnamon Girl (I'm pretty sure it's a cover but I can't remember who the original artist was off the top of my head).


Fortune
QUOTE (TheMadDutchman)
... the Type O Negative cover of Cinnamon Girl (I'm pretty sure it's a cover but I can't remember who the original artist was off the top of my head).

Neil Young. wink.gif
TheMadDutchman
I bet you guys thought this thread was dead didn't you?

Actually I've seen some things on other threads that've caused me to have more ideas and questions that relate to settings so instead of hijacking two or three other threads I figured I'd put it all in here and kickstart this one onward.

First off there is another thread (one of the new GM ones) where the advice is given to focus on depth instead of breadth and try to create/run in a smaller but much more detailed environment such as a single city rather than to try and do the entire world. This leads the questions: what about secondary locations? I haven't had the time to come up w/ any answers on this yet but I wanted to put it out there. It's not uncommon in SR to be based out of a city such as Seattle or Denver but over the course of the campaign I've seen a lot of instances where GMs get a little itchy for the open road and want to send the Players out of town for a run or two (You know, that daring break in Portland, or Celtic Double Cross, or that million nuyen run that involves a trip to detroit for the finale). How do you make the secondary areas as cool and exciting and real as the primary w/out putting another 120 hours of work it's development? I ask this because the last thing I want is for everyone to think my campaign is totally rockin' until I send them to Seattle for one mission and all I can do is describe it as cold and rainy. (Seattle's not the best example because of how much source material there is on it so I hope you get what I'm trying to say)

The other big question I have is: How sick is your game? How violent is the city around the PCs, how prevalent are drugs and other illegal trades, how cheap is human life? I ask this for a couple of reasons: first of all, I'm used to very low morality SR but I've noticed that some of the missions posted on the SR page seem to be written with the conception that Shadowrunners have scruples and in the case of some of the karma award tables, with the idea that runners should be punished for acting immoral.
Draconis
QUOTE (TheMadDutchman)
I bet you guys thought this thread was dead didn't you?

Actually I've seen some things on other threads that've caused me to have more ideas and questions that relate to settings so instead of hijacking two or three other threads I figured I'd put it all in here and kickstart this one onward.

First off there is another thread (one of the new GM ones) where the advice is given to focus on depth instead of breadth and try to create/run in a smaller but much more detailed environment such as a single city rather than to try and do the entire world.  This leads the questions: what about secondary locations?  I haven't had the time to come up w/ any answers on this yet but I wanted to put it out there.  It's not uncommon in SR to be based out of a city such as Seattle or Denver but over the course of the campaign I've seen a lot of instances where GMs get a little itchy for the open road and want to send the Players out of town for a run or two (You know, that daring break in Portland, or Celtic Double Cross, or that million nuyen run that involves a trip to detroit for the finale).  How do you make the secondary areas as cool and exciting and real as the primary w/out putting another 120 hours of work it's development?  I ask this because the last thing I want is for everyone to think my campaign is totally rockin' until I send them to Seattle for one mission and all I can do is describe it as cold and rainy.  (Seattle's not the best example because of how much source material there is on it so I hope you get what I'm trying to say)

The other big question I have is: How sick is your game?  How violent is the city around the PCs, how prevalent are drugs and other illegal trades, how cheap is human life?  I ask this for a couple of reasons: first of all, I'm used to very low morality SR but I've noticed that some of the missions posted on the SR page seem to be written with the conception that Shadowrunners have scruples and in the case of some of the karma award tables, with the idea that runners should be punished for acting immoral.

Our game is pretty "sick", the city is extremely violent, drugs are so prevalent we create and sell them ourselves as a sideline.

Personally speaking if runners where punished for acting immoral i'd never get karma. I mean originally my character Scratch never killed anyone he'd use stun spells he was very wide eyed and innocent. Now he'll kill and won't give it a second thought, it's not like he's shooting for a body count it's just that it won't bother him if he does take someone out. Kill or be killed. I just realized he helped orchestrate a tactical nuclear weapon detonation last run and killed a bunch of random people just to take out an enemy and make some money. This is a huge change from two years ago when he went out of his way to save and heal civilians in Kowloon. Hmm I suppose it's not power that corrupts but the road to power that messes you up.
His paradigm has gradually shifted and his morality is dropping like a rock, good thing this isn't a WW game. Funny how almost dying a half dozen times will do that to a guy. I guess if enough people try to kill you, you think everyone wants to give it a shot. Shadowrunning leaves scars that aren't always physical. He's not to the point where he'll kill for fun but it may just be a matter of time. Hooray for character development.

As to the missions on the SR page remember they're catering to conventional morality and a general audience.

Temperance
One thing my SR GM has done to enhance the setting is encourage the players to take one of their knowledges/interests and flesh it out. For instance, your character likes to watch Urban Brawl. What the character's favorite team, how well are they doing this season, what are the draft picks, etc. It works really well. One player basically did that and his 'runner usually wore his favorite team's colors. But only during the season. Afterwards he'd go back to normal clothes.

-Temperance
TheMadDutchman
See I dig stuff like that. Some of the things I'm going to be asking the players in my upcoming campaign are: What are five things you'd always have in fridge and what's in your medicine cabinet?

I believe that stuff like that are actually very telling about the personality of the character.
bibliophile20
QUOTE (TheMadDutchman)
See I dig stuff like that. Some of the things I'm going to be asking the players in my upcoming campaign are: What are five things you'd always have in fridge and what's in your medicine cabinet?

I believe that stuff like that are actually very telling about the personality of the character.

One of my personal characters keeps spare tubes of explosive putty in his medicine cabinet...

And his fridge is stocked with booze; aside from the beer (the real stuff, not soy, he's allergic) everything in there is at least 40 proof.

biggrin.gif
Ophis
Don't those fridges come as standard when you ahve your SIN wiped? smile.gif
Draconis
QUOTE (TheMadDutchman)
See I dig stuff like that. Some of the things I'm going to be asking the players in my upcoming campaign are: What are five things you'd always have in fridge and what's in your medicine cabinet?

I believe that stuff like that are actually very telling about the personality of the character.

The concept is interesting but I'm not certain that it does tell you about personality.

For example how about: 1. real meat 2. green flavored soda 3. cheesecake 4. leftover burritos 5. zen laced popsicles

and in the cabinet an electric toothbrush for trolls, electric nail file, toothpaste, floss, turtle wax, and lube.



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