I didn't say the game has to be easy. I said it has to be rewarding. This means giving rewards to the players for playing, not for succeeding, and it means not penalizing the players when the characters fail.

I've been looking at your stated birth dates. And then I've been looking at just which posters state their willingness to keep trying different approaches: as opposed, say, to making a given peg fit all sizes of hole. (I say nothing about accuracy of self-image, or whether or not the differing approaches might be different shades of black.)

The shadowrunners may be amphibious, but by basing their freedom on corporate contracts -- and focusing the vast majority of their resources on being better able to fulfill those contracts, and indeed purchasing or bargaining for corporate resources to do so, whether straight from the source or from the shadow market (which still profits the corporation) -- they reinforce the existing structure.

Remember the shadowtalk in the original Riggers' Black Book, on the page discussing the Ares Roadmaster?

I disagree. Shadowrunners contribute to a negative-sum game—they create a Prisoner's Dilemma where it's much worse for everyone to hire Shadowrunners than for no one to hire Shadowrunners, but even worse than that to not hire Shadowrunners while someone else, anyone else, hires Shadowrunners.

Add in some just plain old betrayal of corporate contacts, and you have attacks on the social structure.

~J

I openly welcome 'punk' into my games. Just as much as I openly welcome 'candy raver' 'new wave' "Bushido' 'slash metal' and 'old west' into it. The themes give me places to do, and people to see, and my players like the fact that is a wide wide world of culture out there to experience.

@ Kagetenshi:

Exactly the same could be said for the advertising wars, and you'll notice none of the major players have imploded yet. It just adds to product cost, which is passed down to the consumer. Even no-name brands are quickly sucked into the advertising Red Queen's race, and tend to end up with a share of the market proportional to the amount of brand-name familiarity they have built relative to the Big Boys.

All else being equal, people prefer to work towards goals that directly improve their own lives. In game, this means players will be more interested in pursueing their character's goals than taking orders from a fixer or Johnson. Out of game it means the players want their character to succeed directly at goals that improve the character. We get enough of working for someone elses benifit in real life.

I've been giving it some thought and I don't believe that many shadowrunners would be part of the "punk" movement. I think the counter culture they would be better identified with would Freak Power/Gonzoism.

Let's look at the king of Gonzo; the Doctor, Hunter S. Thompson. For those of you who don't know who HST is I can offer you my condolences. He was a brilliant mind. He was also man played by Johnny Depp in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He wrote that book as well as the Rum Diary (one of my personal favorites) and Hells Angels: A strange and terrible Saga.

He was a man ruled by paranoia and fear; given to outbursts of madness and violence, and heavily indulgent to any vice that happened to come along. He was a journalist; but one who was always on the outside a pioneer of what was known as "the new journalism" which rather than seperating the writer from the experience as traditional journalism did it was written from a point of total emersion. His writings, as his life, were raw and gritty.

When I think of how shadowrunners "should" live (if I were going to lump them all together and say they were part of a counter culture movement) that's what comes to mind.

Let's hear it for Gonzoism.

Actually, I don't think gonzoism will show up that much in real runners.

In general, the behavior of predators is very conservative, because of the risks involved. Take too many risks and you get yourself killed. Of course, this does not mean that people will not do really stupid stuff but it does mean that they will take actions that they believe to promote success.

Compare the Dumpshock favorite, General Butt Naked to the actions of the PIRA. How many pink mohawks did you see among PIRA fighters? And being a classic runner is much closer to being a member of the PIRA than fighting in the Liberian civil war. Your opposition is highly trained, well organized, and lavishly equipped. They have plenty of intelligence assess and are more than willing to use lethal force.

See, that's just it. Your opposition isn't well organized. Each individual member of your opposition is playing a gigantic multi-way game against the rest of your opposition and a lot of people who generally aren't in your opposition. They're fractured, infighting, and generally not in control outside of tight extraterritorial borders.

See again the fact that major Seattle highways are ruled by gangs after dark.

~J

@ Kagetenshi and Crusher Bob:

Opposition is different for different levels of shadowrunner. The higher up on the shadowrunning food chain, the more likely the jobs or even life itself will throw the runners against an ever more organised opposition. What's confusing the issue is that more than one opposition exists, many of which may be competitively opposed but which at the same time stand for the same kinds of things. There's more things alike between the various members of the Corporate Court than different.

Gangs operate on a zero-sum basis: to gain respect, one must take it from another. Corporations operate on the capitalist pyramid premise: which assumes infinite wealth growth.

@ TheMadDutchman:

Some shadowrunners may operate on this principle, certainly. I'll suggest it would be much more likely among runners who have an ideal to work toward -- and thus may be willing to take greater risks to achieve a personal end -- rather than simply personal survival and thrive-al within a societal system otherwise rejected.

Ironically, nothing inherent in capitalism theory requires true competition. Competition, it is held, only makes the system more efficient (as opposed to monopoly, subsidy, ...). The SR world arguably is not efficient, only ruthless.

It really depends on how you define "government". With extraterritoriality, it would not, in my opinion, be unfair to call AA and larger corporations governments themselves, in which case their economies are wholly state-owned and state-run (the antithesis of capitalism). If you consider them to be solely corporations, you have an argument for capitalism.

~J

Weird, my childhood was filled with british comedy. Largely the Goodies, To The Manor Born, The Good Life and Are You Being Served, with a smattering of Benny Hill and the Pythons...left me with an accent that strays far too easily into the British Isles.

I can think of two ways to tie this into SR. The first is to insert it into the background by mentioning tv shows that are on in bars and electronic stores. You known things like "The Odd Coven" which I believe is from SR2.


The other is to bring in the players as pawns in a ratings war. Have the head of CBS pay for a wetworks on the finalists for UCAS idol. Of course it doesn't have to be that extreme. You could pay them to do anything from hacking into the Fox network and replacing an all new episode w/ a re-run or blowing up transmitters.


You could create an anti-tv counterculture. There are people in the real world (usually associated w/ reactionary religious groups) who believe that tv is not only bad for us but straight up killing us. What if in SR they've sat on the sidelines protesting and writing letters to the FCC long enough and they're ready to take action. Maybe they'll hire a hacker to replace the next episode of Survivor w/ an episode of the 400 club or a pre-taped religious service. The kind of cool thing about a group like this is that they'd be very punk in their actions- blowing up transmitters and sabatoging programming but they'd look too normal. Guys in properly fitting slacks w/ tucking in short-sleeve button down shirts and properly trimmed hair. Girls in non-revealing slacks or skirts w/ long hair and either no make-up or very very modest make-up. They'd be a total rejection of everything tv has to offer. Also, they'd probably live in a closed of community or at least have regular meetings.

No, what I mean is, how can we tie the UCAS elections into a popular trid show in Shadowrun? This is probably a complete tangent, I know, but can we expect Pres/V-P candidates getting in an RV and riding across the UCAS getting odd jobs a la that Paris Hilton show? Would they be competing on comedy shows doing weird stunts to win attention? Obviously, Dunky wouldn't be doing that. He'd hire people to do it for him (then eat his competitors). But the rest of us humans who couldn't possibly afford the money necessary for a proper advertising blitz? I mean, if I'm running for prez on a shoe-string budget in a world where there are half a dozen parties and twice as many independent candidates, would competing for the teenager trid fan be a viable strategy?

Kids have impact on their parents' votes, and shows like UCAS Idolize aren't watched SOLELY by 15 year olds. I'm amazed when the subject comes on on talk radio about how many people watch these things, some of whom seem to be very impressionable.

And even if we take UCAS Idolize out, what about all the other trid shows adults do watch? What about Crazy-Happy-Japanese-Wacky-Prize-Game-Show? What about Jeopardize? Imagine a candidate getting a job with the Running Man or playing in Climbing for Cash? Heck, with the advanced editing technology we have, he could be on the 2am kung fu reruns.

...Bread & Circuses Episode #54 Season 2...

You total geek, KK.

...yeah, I know...

Yet I steer millions (no thousands) er thousands of miles away from TrekCons.

Appreciated the show for what it was, don't care to live it like many do.

But if people in this place are calling you a geek, that is pretty bad.

...we all have our little eccentricities. Used to be involved in radio (before it was cool to be a "toilet humour jock"), radio theatre, & trivia challenges. I've accumulated a lot of totally useless knowledge over the years.