Recently someone made a point around here that the days of style over substance have kinda disappeared anyway. I mean in many ways it is still all about the toys, but more for what the toys do that what the toys look like. I know rpgs for fashionistas is more white wolf than Shadowrun, but in this case I think it applies. Do we, the shadowrun community have an understanding of the COOL of what it is we do? Do trolls have a different cultural taste than say orks, because of who designs clothes that fit them? Does the same hold true for Dwarves?

I know that cyberpunk as a movement has died, yet in a way it succeeded in its objectives. (in as much as it had objectives) ( do we claim this as our truth?)

it seems to me that we are more, cyber merc than cyber punk. I think that much of the cool of what we do, is in the aspiration and dreams of freedom and power to do as we choose. To have the corpers asking us for things, not demanding our money. Desirous of an inversion of power we seek a future that is not our own, this is our cool.

I summon Wounded Ronin.

Please enlighten me, your reference eludes me, and my search fu is weak.

That is an excellent question. Sure, what we do on the tabletop isn't gonna change our whole world a lot, but storytelling does have some effect on what values we reinforce or cultivate.

The group I'm in, meets at a collective bakery - after it's closed, but mmm, the day-old artisan muffins are still better than the mass-market boxed variety. The GM, who is a member of the collective, is running a story in which resistance to the JIS invasion of CalFree is a major plot, and although actually kicking them out is unlikely, slowing down or stopping the spread of their domain seems possible. Sometimes working for the corporations is a way to raise money for the Resistance, and when we get high-tech prototypes, we donate a sample to the Resistance while selling to the corps. Our first run involved crossing paths with mosquito spirits, and my character is pulling together an alliance to attack the hive, including the "Permaculture Army" eco-gang that runs a local park, an ork tribe that took refuge in dwarf tunnels when the JIS kicked them out of San Francisco, a Resistance mage and his cadre, even a ghoul gang whose territory is affected... and ya know, we might invite the local government and their contracted security force into the party, because they're as freaked out about bugs in the utility tunnels as anyone else, but really, it's a grassroots thing. Ares is definitely not invited.

As for fashion, my troll PC is well aware that a few corps are trying to define their products as troll style, and some Sauron shamans are probably claiming that wearing bearskins or whatever is our One True Way. Whatever. What matters is that no one gets a monopoly, because as long as only Evo is selling troll-sized cyberlimbs, then Evo gets to pick the case colors and set the price as high as they like, but as soon as there's alternatives, fairer deals become more available.

Although when dealing with the corps, my PC will make the first offer to Evo, because they sell to metahumans of all sizes, and most other corps don't deal with us even as customers/suckers.

It kinda depends on powergaming. For a low-power character, just surviving on one's own terms is a reasonable goal. At 400+ points, one is way more powerful than the average Joe and can afford to let ideals set priorities, take some runs for the corps and others for a good cause, etc. At 500+, or 400 plus a lot of Karma, yeah, it's time to be a hero and save the world; was stopping Deus an actual played campaign? Then again, if the players are in it ONLY for power fantasy, then even at 500 points, they're still only worrying about how to afford the next upgrade, and if that means getting paid to assasinate whistleblowers, well, those are lucrative runs.

I'll see your statement, and raise you:
"Cyberpunk isn't cyberpunk any more."

At least, not using the definition most people I know use. Of course, I personally have expanded my definition to include more stuff, since the more restricted definition includes all of 5 books and 2 essays, and is bullshit.

Also, I too summon Wounded Ronin!

I personally adore classic cyberpunk as a genre and do anything I can to add it to my campaigns as a player or GM. My current characters street name for example is Mirra-Kage. Crudely translated Japanese for Mirror-Shade. He's a former Yakuza soldier and yes, he wears mirrorshades and a black suit. Our elf Razorgirl is named "Starshine Moonbeam Fairydust" (Star for short) and to paraphrase the player "looks like Jem with more spiky bits!"

It depends on what your personal take of "cyberpunk" is. If your definition revolves around lame concepts steeped in the paranoia of the 1980's, then yeah, Shadowrun isn't very cyberpunk. Thank God.

But as far as style over substance being dead? In Shadowrun? Are you daft? Orxploitation, for instance, is one of the coolest things added to the setting in years. You have entire nations ruled by specific metahumans and subcultures (the Tirs, the NAN, etc.). You have custom cyberware packages complete with brand names and flavor deals. And in SR4 in particular, magic has gone off the deep-end as far as customization and cultural/personal flavor goes. Gangs run the gamut from mundane gangs based upon modern real-world gangs to crazy concepts like the Halloweeners. Megacorporations are all but unique characters onto themselves, and still as pervasive and overpowering as ever before. The list just goes on and on and on and on...

If anything, I think you confuse the powergamers/munchkins who often post around here as being representative of both the game and the majority of the playerbase. If so, that's a universal problem, not one exclusive to Shadowrun or the near future/modern fantasy genre it represents.

In the end, "cyberpunk" -- regardless of which definition you want to use -- is merely one of the many genres that Shadowrun includes within its grasp. Shadowrun is essentially its own genre. And if you expect it to be any one, single subgenre -- cyberpunk, fantasy, space opera, pirates & ninjas, espionage, whatever -- you're going to be sorely disappointed. Just as you seem to be.

Shadowrun has always been a multi-genre game, in that the core concept (shadowy super-ciminals doing jobs for corrupt megacorporations) can be implemented in many ways - Robin Hoods fighting the man, street punks trying to survive, over the top heroics, or stone cold professionals.

These subgenres tend to wax and wane in popularity. The two current favorites seem to be "street level" games and "professional" games. Both can be fun, but they often miss that sense of idealism and fighting authority - which is where you get the conflict of fighting the system vs. realizing that you are really part of it in the end.

One of the more interesting sub genre's that I remember from Shadowrun was the "struggleing band" one. Desparately trying to make it big and slowly realizing that the glam life is not what it's made out to be.

Astute observation Kronk2. When the patron saint of cyberpunk William Gibson isn't even writing cyberpunk anymore, yes the genre is pretty much dead. Welcome to the post-post modern age.

so....
I know for a fact i'm going to get heat for this but I think most people are missing the point. Ok follow my logic. The cyberpunk genre is a huge component of shadowrun, l mean it's so obvious one only has to look at the Wiki for "Cyberpunk" and guess what, a picture of shadowrun right there.

Shadowrun is a cyberpunk game with fantasy aspects incorporated into it, not the reverse, a fantasy game with cyberpunk aspects. Shadowrun is not it's own genre. It's a combination of genres yes, but that does not make it suddenly unique. For a nice example let's mix druids, power armor, magic, monsters, laser guns, and space ships together. New genre! Uh no, that's called Rifts and it's still sci-fi with fantastic aspects.

Also I'd have to debate that's it's how you run the game that matters, street level, professionals, whatever. I've done both power levels and everything in between. I started street with this last edition and went pro. If you're using Shadowrun and its concepts you're inherently incorporating cyberpunk. You're just playing a King instead of a pawn on that particular chess board.

So anyway cyberpunk is no longer relevant. Shadowrun is becoming less relevant?
Well maybe if you're using sci-fi as some sort of oracle to elucidate future trends but this is entertainment so let's naturally discount that.
It just shifting and incorporating memes from "What if" to "What is". I mean just because I can leave this computer right now and go purchase the separate devices that compose,in idea, a commlink (minus the sim of course) doesn't make the game any less fun to play.

I love Shadowrun and I don't think it's going to sell any less because it's literary roots have shifted ever so slightly. It's just becoming modern techno-thriller with magic rather than sci-fi with magic.

Of course on a side note I never really considered Shadowrun that accurate in near future tech or society predictions anyway. For that in my opinion I'd check out Transhuman Space. But that of course is just an educated guess. We could all be living in The Road Warrior sooner rather than later.

But what do I know? I've got a science degree, not one in literature.

Oh and Adarael I'll see your statement and raise you one better. "How much does cyberpunk have to change before it's not cyberpunk anymore?"

Oh and sorry, I'm going to flat out ignore a trend around here. I'm not going to get into a juvenile debate over specifics. This is merely my opinion and food for thought and discussion. Feel free to agree or disagree. This is likely my first and last post on the thread. I'm far too busy these days to argue minutiae.

Sorry for going off topic

Honestly I don't think its any fun to play in a game strictly based on the question of sexual/ gender/ personal identity as it applies to a cybernetic being. Leave that to the anime.

the Cyborg Manifesto is not something I really want to play with. It is not user friendly and makes my head hurt trying to sort through the propaganda. This seems more apropos

But the struggle of the mystical versus the mundane ala magic versus media does work well as a plot structure for a game. These are concepts that we can actually implement into our narrative. Other struggles that work well, Tradition versus progress. Self versus perception of self. ( in SR it seems that the latter has precedence.)

This is an awesome conversation. I want it to continue.

Ninjas. You need ninjas. Any moment now, Wounded Ronin will come along and tell us all about the awesomeness of the 80s and ninjas (and the 80s and ninjas are awesome).

I'll let WR handle the Ninjas because his rants about Sho Kosugi are extremely cool.


So I'll just say that SR needs more ROCKERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.
Not rockers.
ROCKERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

The difference, my friends, is tremendous.

I mean razor sharp weapon focus guitars (literal axes), friends. I mean huge troll drummers who are totally baddass. I mean giant hair on the heads of effeminate men. I mean glitter. Absurd amounts of glitter. And I mean Madonna's conical bra.

And guns, lots and lots of guns. Guns in guitar cases. Guns built into guitars.

And rocket launchers.

And Ballads. And POWER BALLADS!!!!!

And magical Goblin Kings who try to seduce everybody and it's weird because the straight guys kind of like it but it's okay because he's androgynous enough to count as a girl for the purposes of determining whether or not the sex is gay.

And the popular Japanese rock band Fire Bomber is also an elite military unit that flies out in high tech planes and signs at the enemies of the Japanese Imperial State, subduing them with nothing more than the Baddassery of their crappy derivative J-pop power ballads.

And Edge, it isn't called Edge any more. It's called Baddassery now.

And all elf ninjas are homosexual. All of them, without exception. You got hot lesbian ninja elves and hot gay ninja elves, and ugly gay ninja elves but there are no ugly lesbian ninja elves, they're all hot, and no straight ninja elves.

And people in the Tirs wear poofy shirts with pink waist coats. They're highly fashionable.

"Troll gang sodomizes Tir dignitary - he objects but he likes it" is the single most popular 2070 youtube download (for all the yaoi fangirls)

And everyone air guitars. All the time.

And Black Michael Jackson has been found frozen in suspended animation under Neverland valley ranch after a deadly confrontation from White Michael Jackson, who is really an absurdly powerful magical impostor of unknown classification.

And Hulkamania is still running wild. What you gonna do, brother?

Class? What is stopping you from making a character that is a rocker right now?

And having feathered hair or a mullet will get you automatic +1 to charisma. Having both will turn you into a sex god. And much of the southern American states have been nigh decimated as Chuck Norris and Patrick Swayze are locked in a never ending battle for supremacy. Their still continuing one on one battle roving over rock and field and desert and dojo and roadhouse and corporate office and old factory and.... well, you get the picture.

lack of reasonable method for tracking my bands success/fame/godhood. And better rules for handling cybered music than midi.

Noto; passing out backstage before the concert, refusing to go onstage because the candy bowl has RED candies in the mix that your contract specifically stated were to be removed (extra point if either of the prior leads to full scale riot by the audience), biting the head off a live bat during a show, a gang member you hired as security for the show kills someone in the audience (extra point if they do it with their bare hands), your band's drummer dies from choking on their own vomit, etc.. Then you've got your Street as per usual, with bonus Karma rewards for totally rocking out, and you are set. Your music career is your Reputation.

Blandness is a Negative Quality.

P.S. Laser Axe + steel strings = music of the gods! Make it a cyber weapon version and you are set.

Use the Public Awareness rules to track fame. This encourages PC rockers to both take many shadowruns and to be as violent, unprofessional, and anti-social as is possible on those runs, because both Reputation and Notoriety contribute to their fame and popularity as musicians.

Its actually cool, because doing all the crazy crap that the best and most famous rockers used to do actually makes you a more famous rocker. Only, it is extremely exaggerated.

It's Josie and the Pussycats meets Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground.

RAWK!!

Actually the Rep score thing would be a great way of handling it.

The band itself could have atts

Body: how well do the songs last on the charts, do they have "staying power"
Strength: How hard do they rock?
Agility: the bands ability to improvise
Reflexes: the band's ability to change
Charisma: Just how glam and hot are they.
Intuition: How universal the music is, does it span cultural borders and reach out to the core of their audience in unpronounceable ways.

Logic: does the music make sense, is it technically difficult, does it appeal to cerebral - portions of a persons being

Willpower: how catchy the music is. How difficult is it to resist the beat/message/carnage

I guess one could add resonance and magic, but thats kinda silly

Firstly, I would argue the single biggest problem with cyberpunk is that it was too far ahead of its time. Cyberware still hasn't really appeared. The Matrix still hasn't really appeared. The biggest problem is globalization hasn't panned out as has been expected. Most of the ideas of cyberpunk still are very relevant, and getting moreso every day. As we open markets, competition is getting sharper, people are being pushed to sell more and more of themselves just to get by, technology is getting more pervasive. However, we are finding we're more able to be individuals, which is contrary to the cyberpunk setting. The corporate enclaves never really panned out and probably won't unless corporations figure out how to exert some pretty major market pressures. So yes, striving for Cyberpunk is still a good thing.

Secondly, the opinion that Shadowrun lost its cyberpunk edge really started reaching a head around 3rd edition. It became 'too cartoony', too high-powered and optimistic. 4th edition continued the trend. 4th edition really is pushing post-humanist rather than cyberpunk. It doesn't feel dark, and most of the artwork really isn't dark. It's dirty, but not dark. Shadowrun has the feel of turning from a Winter game to a Spring game.

Adding rockers and ninjas would be a plus though.

They aren't called Rockers anymore, they're called Rappers. Gangstas commitin' crimes and singin' rhymes? You know the new Shadowrun is all about the rappers. Orxploitation ftw!

i actually see the cartoony/overpowered elements as really peaking in 2nd ed, specifically with Harlequin's Back. i guess SotF was pretty high-end, what with the breaking into dragons' lairs and whatnot, but at least it was still criminal-y. ...ish. ...esque.

I wonder if the U.S. is just more optimistic about the future than it was in the 80's. Back in the 80's, everyone kind of took it for granted that the entire Earth was going to be nuked into radioactive slag at any minute. Nearly all the sci fi future timelines talked about it as a given, even the super-optimistic Star Trek universe.

Even with all the propaganda about terrorists killing us at any minute, that's still small scale stuff, not end-of-the-world fears that existed in the 80's. Even though our economy is in the tank and even the Canadians are kicking our asses, everyone still thinks things are going to get a whole lot better next year. Even though the U.K. has turned into an Orwellian police state, they don't seem to care. I remember back in the 80's everyone was learning Japanese because it looked like they were taking over the world, but now the Chinese are going gangbusters and I don't hear anyone saying they're learning Mandarin.

Maybe the news has just gotten better at distracting citizens with Britney Spears and OJ Simpson soap operas...

Thats right. If you want to survive in the future here's some tips for you

The letter Z is pronouced Zed not Zee
And about is Aboot

Practice and pick up ur trash. Canucks Rule

I'm not going to argue against the overwhelming amount of distracting garbage in modern day society, but there has been a lot of sociological research into the current youth generation that has found them to be more optimistic about their ability to bring about social change collectively. Very much unlike the Generation X'ers before them.

I'm not a sociologist, but I can't help but think this probably has something to do with them being raised alongside the Internet. Which flipped cyberpunk on its head, because you have a whole generation that sees this new technology not as an alien, dehumanizing, other world, but a natural, empowering, extension of their world. And that's when you start getting into post-cyberpunk.

I think that optimism may change in a few years, honestly. The initial pangs of globalization are (as could have been predicted) against basic labor. Now it's climbing up to basic services. Give it another five years and we'll see a major shift in the optimism of high-tech employees who now have to have a master's to stay ahead. That feeling will trickle down and we'll shift back into a more cyberpunk setting.

In regards to feeling cartoony, the art in the sourcebooks is a MAJOR contributor towards that, unfortunately. Just like most people couldn't get past how the new Cyberpunk book featured action figures in their art, when the first thing you see of SR4 is its current cover, it unfortunately makes a difference, even if the written content of the book is great.

Don't forget messin with their beer

Didn't know that american beer was so much better.

At least americans can pluralize "beer" properly.
(One unit of beer in a container is 'one beer'. Two is 'two beers,' not 'two beer!'!)

Its not. Over the last couple of Decades We Canadians have been infiltrtating American popular cultre. I.e Alex Trebeck, M.J. Fox, Tom green. Phase 2 Sell molsen to Coors. Phase 3 Create a Strong Dollar. For too long we have been a
defacto collection of states with no representaion.

Sorry for the spelling im alittle bit rushed

Dean

No, Canada is two states with representation and a collection of others that either get patted on the head or bitch-slapped depending on what they try to do.

Too true Kzt too true

The official beer of Shadowrun is Dunkelweizen if its good enough for the Dunkie then its good enough for me.

Kronk2 ur hyjackin your own thread