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Spike
On and off again people discuss the various facets of the setting, the prevelance of Tamanous and organlegging, how big brother the Mega's are. In keeping with my SOP (that the setting in the BBB is the start point, rather than the endpoint for setting discussions) I thought I'd open a topic to discuss just how bad people play it up.

Its only fair that I begin. Fair warning that there are parts that will be patently offensive to our sensibilities. This is not a statement of my beliefs, but how I think dystopian societies will function in some regards.

There is no trust, no honor that you can count on. If you are an ordinary Citizen, a Sinner, money and your parent Corporation are your Gods, roughly in that order. If you are Sinless, by choice or accident, survival is the name of the game, with wealth and power coming in a near distant second. Runners don't trust their fixer, their johnson, their joygirls... they don't even trust eachother beyond the immedeate firefight.

But lets ignore the Macro and focus on the Micro.

The barrens: Home to the Sinless, the unwanted, and of necessity the Shadowrunner. Food and water are scarce, often stolen or unhealthy. Most drinking water is collected from the omnipresent acid rain, filtered if you're lucky, though near the borders of the Barrens enterprising gangs and syndicates have stolen from municipal supplies. Sewage is a joke, most of the barrens smells like an open latrine, though again, some areas are better off than others. Ironically, some Barrens folk actually eat 'better' than their Sinner cousins, if by better you mean 'real meat and vegetables' rather than 'healthy diet'. Of course, the meat is from rats and stray dogs and cats, and the vegetables are grown in hidden gardens and is pretty aenemic... or grown in crude hydroponic greenhouses guarded by heavily armed men and sold to the highest bidder. Fertilizer isn't a problem.

Its a bad state of affairs when the Devil Rats aren't viewed as vermin or menaces but valuable resources, and children are the vermin. Yes, children. Unwanted babies from every metatype (with the rare exceptional troll rounding it out... troll fertility is too low for it to happen often) are either used as resources by the unsavory (Tamanous pays top dollar for healthy newborns... they prefer them still bloody from afterbirth...), or wind up in feral gangs of other street kids. Feral kids are vicious, uncivilized beasts, willing and able to kill, and even eat, an adult by ambush or simply by virtue of their numbers. Older gangs occasionally clear their turf of unwanted ferals, adopting any survivors of the purge into the gang. Not out of virtue, but because children are useful resources. Hard workers, easy to discipline and train, and if you get bored you can always put them into the pits to fight each other, dogs or what ever you like, and bet on the outcome. Eventually such children become full fledged gangsters, if they survive. Of course, to cross over from 'smart pet' to 'gangbanger' requires you get your ass beat in a 'Jumping In', and probably daily after until someone else get's jumped in, when you start doing the jumping. People die during this, all the time, and it never ends. Who gets to beat ass, and who gets to get beaten is a measure of a primative pecking order. Bigger gangs beat up the smaller gangs, Syndicates beat on the gangs.

There are two ladders to climb for a new gangster: He can work to rise in his gang until he leads it, then try to grow the gang's power and influence or he can try to get out and join a Syndic. Unless you are born into one of the power families within a syndicate, coming up through the gangs is the only route in, though once in the sky is the limit to a ruthless, cunning man.

Speaking of men: Women generally fall into three rough catagories. Family, whores and bitches. Family are women you are related to directly, your mother, your sister, your daughter. Not that it matters to many people, more than one pimp has started with his own family and moved on from there. Whores generally encompasses all others, screw women's lib. There are some differences between a whore who is pimped out (or outright owned) and a whore who mostly does other stuff but will accept money over being raped.

That leaves the bitches, which mostly means a woman who won't have sex. This is usually accomplished by being related to someone more powerful than the man speaking, but can also mean a woman who fights back. Entire gangs are formed of women who refuse to be whores, though the ethics of the Barrens means they aren't above earning money from other women, or men, who are whores.

Homosexuality in the barrens is a dicey proposition. Most people just don't care. Prison bitches have been a fact of life for over 100 years, and even though most barrens rats might never see a day of prison in their lives, the instituion lives on. In many gangs, the senior members have the 'right' to make anyone under their station their bitch. As long as you pitch its manly behavior, though the 'bitch' is generally viewed as weak or effeminate. This isn't a lifelong taint, many barrens rats were used by adults as children at some point, though it is thankfully far from universal.

And certainly, there are areas where the dominant power is a tranny gang or some other 'GBLT' gang, where its safer and easier to adopt the lifestyle.

On the other hand many of the syndicates, particularly the Vory and the Mafia, view homosexuality, in any form, as disgusting. The Vory, in particular, kill homosexuals in their ranks (though, interestingly, they merely exile the bitch... and in this case the taint is permanent, once a bitch you are never a man in their eyes), while the Mafia generally just shuns their 'pansies' socially. In a bit of hypocrasy, the Vory only consider it pedophilia if the victim is male.

Life is short, anyone over thirty is an 'old man', and probably feels it. Interestingly, this fits the orkish lifespan nicely, though since they make up roughly half the population of the barrens its debateable if this is because of, or in spite of the orkish population. If disease doesn't kill you, violence almost certainly will.

Outside the barrens:

While it doesn't take much to 'improve' upon conditions in the barrens, there comes a point where the improvements make the situation worse. Almost every SINner belongs to a corp, typically for life. There are exceptions, for example government workers by law need to be government citizens. Outside of the municipal employees there are a handful of municipal citizens, often the poor and dispossessed of their own sort, running tiny businesses under insane restrictions handed down by the corporate court... think a hotdog stand that has to avoid selling any name brand products (including the hotdogs)... in a world where just about everything is name brand.

The chump earning pocket change by the hour working the Stuffer Shack? He was probably born in a corporate enclave within the city, his parents are probably lower paid employees of the parent corp that owns stuffer shack, and given the rising numbers of automated Shacks in the wireless world, his crappy, dangerous, job is probably the envy of all his peers. He might never see a nuyen in his life, he's paid entirely in scrip, just like everyone he knows. Nuyen is the 'universal dollar', the medium of exchange. On the off chance that an Ares employee shops at a Fuchi store, the Ares Scrip is coverted into Nuyen that is traded between the two corps, probably at a heavy loss for the poor bastard buying. Only municipal employees and the very rich work directly with nuyen on a regular basis. Scrip mostly exists electronically, but a small percentage is printed out annually for various reasons. It is important to note that Scrip is inherently valueless. It is not backed by anything in particular, and its purchasing ability is set entirely arbitrarily by the parent corporation. As a medium of exchange it's value is non-existant without the Corporate Court setting trade treaties between the Mega's, which are followed by the lower teir corps by default.

Outside the barrens everyone is watched, everyone is monitored. So much so that some SINners are actually uncomfortable when NOT being watched. Of course, with so much surviellance there are no where near enough people to monitor it all, never mind the recursion this would cause (who watches the watchers indeed), which is where computers come into play. Computers watch everything, even eachother, looking for anolomious data to report to their human supervisors.

There is no such thing as corruption, only things that will get you in trouble and things that won't. Taking bribes and kickbacks is done openly, as long as it is not against corporate interests. That geek behind the counter at stuffer shack can mark up prices and keep the proceeds as long as the profit margin for the shack itself doesn't suffer. In fact, if he pulls it off, he's likely to get a promotion, after he pays his corporate taxes on the extra income. Unproductive employees aren't fired, they are put into dangerous jobs that are likely to kill them to reduce overhead. Being fired is, for many corporate drones, the worst thing that can happen to you. Think like a catholic who is threatened with excommunication and you're on the right track.

Lonestar: These guys are bad news. They make their money from the corps, though there are exceptions. They don't care much about their city contract, except that by keeping it they keep all their other contractee's happy. Ironically, they can do their best work for the city itself, since they are generally unfettered by laws and regulations designed to preserve corporate interests. Commit a crime on Lonestar turf and you are as good as caught, and they have very very few 'non-combat' personel, making them one of the largest private armies available.

Lonestar rarely goes into the barrens however. They have a standing bid with the city to clear the barrens (paid by the hectacre 'reclaimed'). When they DO go in, however, everyone notices. They ride in armored columns with heavy weapons and generally kill every living thing they see between the gates and their target location. Of course, this is only fair as when the Star pays a visit, every group of thugs tends to migrate to the area to see if they can steal any bit of hardware they can. When the Star goes to the barrens it's open warfare.

Lonestar and corporate guards come in two groups: Affable freindly faces and hardened killers. When the guards are meant as a public face, they tend to be affable types, though perhaps one in five is really a upgraded killer with a charming disposition. Hardened killers are paramilitary assassins more often than not.

Street Docs:

These guys are generally the bottom barrel of the medical establishment. Few are highly skilled, and those that are tend to have other problems, such as operating while drunk/stoned, molesting patients or other unsavory predilictions. They are scum, and untrustworthy. Die on the table and you won't get a funeral, though maybe some ghoul will toast your misfortune over his next meal.

Most street docs are slightly better off with drug cooking or cyber surgery, rarely both. Its always best to have someone watch your back when you go in, however... you never know if the Doc in question is looking for spare parts. For obvious reasons most Docs prefer to set up shop in the Barrens, and due to the needed resources (generators, for example) most Docs pay for good bodyguards and other security measures.

Fixers:

Fixers are primarily 'guys who know guys', above all else they are middle men and facilitators. In some ways they are 'Faces', in that most shadowrunner teams couldn't afford to carry a full time social monkey. If a Fixer offers you a Job, he got it from someone else, and he's keeping a good chunk of the payout. If the fixer hooks you up with a Johnson, he got a finders fee from the J, you probably aren't the only team, and he'll probably charge you a finder's fee for hooking you up with a J. If you fence goods to him, he'll turn around and resell them to the intereted parties for a good markup, if you buy guns from him he'll buy the guns at a discount from a gunrunner for you.

In other words: He'll do just about anything a normal contact will do, only you pay for the priviledge of this one stop shop.

The Fixer can, and will, sell you out if the money is good. Rare indeed is the fixer who values your friendship over the goodwill and money his other contacts bring. If you want your fixer to keep your secrets, don't share them with him... its that simple. A great number of fixers are paranoid for a reason.

Aztechnology and the Megacorporations:

The big factor here is that Aztechnology, often demonized in the setting literature, is no worse than any other megacorp. None. They are more open and obvious about it, certainly. The only thing keeping Ares from committing blood sacrifices on a regular basis is they aren't set up to make any money from it. Halberstom's expirements on children and metahuman brains? Doesn't even rate a scandal if it were public knowledge. No. One. Cares. If Lofwyr told Saeder-Krupp's board of directors that he required their first born daughters as a meal in return for a 50% increase in profits, he'd likely get it. Certainly, they'd at a minimum give him SOMEONE's daughters. Sons too, they don't care.

In fact, caring just means you are a victim waiting to happen. Caring means you think it can, and will, happen to you.

Religions:

Even the old, established ones are more like cults nowadays. The rise of magic, particularly magic shapped by religous beliefs has breathed new life into the old stale churches... sort of. Most corporate citizens are agnostic at best, or worship the Corp as some sort of ur-being at worst. Those that remain in the busoms of the church are fanatics, and none are above using mind controlling spells to convert the unwary. A preist that can use Mob Mind during his sermons is going to go farther than one who can't. To further muddle the situation, the biggest church, the Catholic Church, has managed, barely, to keep up with the times. They are considered a private corporation, legally, and issue SINs to the faithful, and standing churches are now Corporate Territory, a new twist on old themes. Sure, a Catholic Sin won't get you a job in most places, but it still grants legitimacy.

Shadowrunners:

SOTA is not quite the bleeding edge. Shadowrunners come in two flavors: ex-SINners and barrens Rats. If you have a legitimate SIN you are not, by some standards, a Shadowrunner. Its a petty distinction, the Runners may think they are better than the street thugs, but in reality its all about perception and reputation. Runners tend to have better gear, but thats only because they spend more time 'working'.

Here is the thing: Runners don't have any real advantages. Usually the target of the Run is going to at least suspect they are a target. The Corps have more people, better gear, and stupid levels of paranoid surviellence. Anything worth keeping secret is never available wirelessly, and 'HRT' teams (lonestar or native) will always have access to magical overwatch and one or more on-team hackers, with rigger backup running drones from a secure station. Each member of the team is likely to be nearly 'runner' competent in his speciality, though he may have less cyberware or other expensive mods... and there will be several teams responding to any given alarm. Most of the time (99%) they will NOT be concerned with loss of life (the runners or bystanders mostly, but with the right mental conditioning even their own team/lives are expendable assets). On the other hand, they generally give up once the goods have been handed off or grown stale.

On the rare occasion that a Shadowrunner is captured, its deliberate, and it will suck. Occasionally they'll be guinea pigs, but more typically they'll be given an offer they can't refuse and then used for ever shit job that requires expendable meat assets to accomplish. Sure, medical and ammo expenses are covered... sort of.

Prison:

Lonestar, among others, contracts out prison management services to the state. That is, the government pays them money for every prisoner they house. Other than ensuring that all the prisoners are in fact alive and in prison, that's as far as the government is allowed to concern itself. There is decent money for Lonestar in this, and like all corporate interests, they like to keep the money flowing in, and not out.

Prison design is a reflection of this. Most Lonestar prisons are essentially big, fenced or walled pits with rudimentary facilities and a few sub-buildings for special cases. The guards are issued mostly 'less than lethal' weapons, but are also encouraged to use them at will to maintain 'order'. Getting caught killing another prisoner is the worst thing that can happen, and long, illegally long, personality altering SIM sessions in 'Solitary Confinement' is a typical punishment. Gender Segregation is accomplished with a simple, effective, fence, and guards are allowed to take advantage of most prisoners in any way they want... exceptions exist for prisoners who come from, and are likely to return to, positions of power outside. Gangs are endemic inside, and a thriving 'criminal' business community exists, with the guards willing participants.

Food is unprocessed soy-krill gruel troughed in twice a day, housing is open bay barracks, kept survivably warm in winter. Medical is entirly up to the whim of the guards (provided that no one dies of neglect on a day to day basis), there is no parole or early release, but by counterpoint, neither can the star extend your sentence. All released prisoners have a RFID implanted barcode tattoo of their new, criminal, SIN on the back of their right hand, and their records are stored in well backed up secure servers, slightly tougher than ordinary SIN servers.

Becoming SINless:

Actually destroying the files on a SINner is pretty difficult, requiring a high end Shadowrun to accomplish or a man on the inside. Fixers specialize in knowing 'men inside' in most cases, but in general its simply easier to erase the 'common identifiers' on the open nets. With a little work the newly SINless is essentially a Non-person for any casual data-search short of pulling the files from the actual server. Criminal SINs are slightly harder to wipe, as they are regularly re-posted to the network, and 'Smart virus' bots are regularly destroyed. Not only that, but the Star will always check their own offline servers directly for anyone processed for a crime (not a traffic stop, say, but if they are actually planning to charge them), which means short of a run to wipe the Star servers (and the backups), a criminal SIN will always be found out at that time. Of course, if Ares Security (or Knight Errant) issued the Criminal SIN, then Lonestar wouldn't know about it and vice versa.


Well, this is long enough, and reasonably detailed enough. In short its pretty harsh out in Spikes Shadows. Not so harsh that Runners can't make a good living at it, mind you. remember, the major employers of Shadowrunners are those hyperparanoid Corporatations, so depite the existance of enough tools to make the average Runner's life miserably short, they rarely, if ever, employ all of them simply because if they did so, they wouldn't be able to hire runners against THEIR rivals. The Star generally restricts itself to hiring runners for work in teh barrens (more cost effective than military style ops), or on very rare occasions when they have a high risk run against a rival trying to undermine their business... Lonestar would rather use their loyal corpies unless they plan on catching the perps, making it a very high risk job for independents...
nezumi
That's way too much for me to read all of that... But overall I felt it went along with how I run my game.

Basically my Shadowrun is a huge resource grab. There aren't enough resources for everyone to have everything they need to live healthy lives (and certainly not enough for the fat cats to buy quite as many mansions as they want). And unlike the current world, the rampant poverty you see in China isn't restricted to China, but exists in your backyard. So basically, anyone who is charitable or not willing to bite the head off the next guy loses and becomes a SINless slob to live out in a shack and eat devil rat until he's gang raped by the local gang for not having paid protection money. The result is the most blood-thirsty, sociopathic people rise to the top, and the most charitable, loving people follow Jesus' example and get nailed.

The corporations have basically become their own organisms and are no longer controlled by humans like we consider it. The corps respond to influences the analysts never notice, and do things the CEO never anticipated. Those on top aren't so much guiding a ship, but riding a bucking bronco. The human organization has grown too big for any single human, or even small group of humans, to understand. Corps, like people, survive by being selfish, greedy and hungry, but unlike corporations, the only rules they respect in regards to basic decency are those enforced by the market. Some corps are more successful at this than others, but the nature of the business results in those individuals best suited to fulfilling the corps' desires getting put in the position to do so.

On the flip side, there ARE some basic standards which still stand. Cannibalism is generally frowned upon because we have an instinct against it. Harming children is still frowned upon (although helping them isn't exactly a big thing). While people kill out of necessity, 80% of people won't kill unless they authentically feel they have to.

I also don't have as much Big Brother as you seem to (although I suspect you run SR4 whereas I run SR3). It takes a lot of energy and puts too much power in the hands of a few people. The corporation self-manages by virtue of everyone looking to backstab their neighbor to take that person's job. Instead of having Big Brother, you have thousands of little brothers. Outside of the confines of the corp, security is laughable because security costs money without bringing much in. There are underground walkways, big cars and helicopters for the haves to get around, and the have-nots don't 'deserve' protection they can't pay for. Of course there are corp enclaves (most malls are corp enclaves that happen to be open to the public) where security is much tighter, but in the public streets, security is enforced by Lone Star, which is a corporation that realizes it has a lot more power putting people on the streets than letting the city realize they can put up their own cameras for a lot less.
Spike
Sounds pretty close. I focused on the worst parts because, well, that was the point, to discuss the worst parts. So you hear about feral children and pedophilia and so forth because, well, it happens.

I'll politely disagree about your cannabalism comment. I've read that at no time in human history has there ever been no instances of cannibalism. Our current culture frowns on it, but there are still tribes in the Amazon that hunt their fellow humans for food, and ritual instances of cannibalism dot the history books, leaving aside the lone sociopaths. To a hungry enough person, other people are meat. Donner party of five? Dinner is served, oh, look: it Jerry! nyahnyah.gif

I do run SR4, not often, but I always keep up with the new editions on things. My Big Brother aspects focused on the prevelance of survellance, as well as the futility. There are never enough people to watch everyone.


However, the biggest point I made was that you can't sell your soul, like everyone else its already gone...



Also: the corporations as living entities is a familiar one. I go between like and dislike on it, but I wanted to keep a human face on the misery. Corporations as entities, while adding to the general hopelessness also removes responsibility from us. Outside of the purely dystopic conditions I described at length, one thing I didn't cover is that there still needs to be some hope in order for it to really suck. If you are just one cell of a giant person named Ares Corp there is no real hope left, and its easy to just stay along for the ride.
nezumi
QUOTE (Spike @ Mar 18 2008, 03:41 PM) *
Sounds pretty close. I focused on the worst parts because, well, that was the point, to discuss the worst parts. So you hear about feral children and pedophilia and so forth because, well, it happens.


I think we already have people who want to go out and do the 'worst thing' they can, and that won't change in the future. The only difference is they will have more tools available to do so.

QUOTE
I'll politely disagree about your cannabalism comment. I've read that at no time in human history has there ever been no instances of cannibalism. Our current culture frowns on it, but there are still tribes in the Amazon that hunt their fellow humans for food, and ritual instances of cannibalism dot the history books, leaving aside the lone sociopaths.


When I was living in Venezuela, I was certainly not aware of any regular instances of cannibalism for food. Ritualized cannibalism is, like you said, ritualized, it's religious. It's consuming strong enemies to get their power, or loved ones to 'keep them in the family', as it were. All of those are very different from the cannibalism you list. Cannibalism for food has never been a regular occurrence in human history. And when you have creatures like ghouls, which may be willing to trade something they can't eat, like weeds, scavenged food and so on, for meat they need (people), cannibalism really isn't required.

QUOTE
Also: the corporations as living entities is a familiar one. I go between like and dislike on it, but I wanted to keep a human face on the misery.


Having corporations being entities means, on the one hand, people can't depend on their futures and can't depend on human compassion to get ahead. On the other hand, the corporation depends on people to do these things. It's still a person who gets the order to go find 200 human 'volunteers' for the medical testing, and still a human who carries it out. It's still a human who stands guard ready to shoot any trespassers, who sets out traps meant to permanently incapacitate people rather than kill them to carry a warning to others.
Kyoto Kid
...for the most part, I kind of fall more into Nezumi's camp, though I also tend to parallel a bit more with current day society, at least outside of the Barrens.

Now in my RiS campaign (3rd ed) Dystopian was almost an understatement as the PCs had to deal with a small but well organised dictatorship which had a very efficient intelligence gathering bureau and secret police force. My best description was that it was like stepping from a "living colour" trivid world into a grainy B & W flatvid. [In RL I had actually crossed into East Berlin back when the wall was still there, the experience was at the very least, sobering. Even a bright sunny day seemed dreary & it was as if I could literally feel the oppression all around me].

I took this feeling and expanded on it (probably too well in some instances). In Beograd trust was a rare commodity, even among family. The SSID propaganda machine did its work well, too well. Everyone feared the Blacksuits (the special agents of the SSID). If they came knocking it was usually to take you to one of their "conversation rooms". One can pretty much surmise what went on there. Step out of line too far, and it's off to a "Re-education" facility. A few months time and your walk out a "good citizen" again ready to make a positive contribution to society. or...

...you end up at Bureau 7. where you are stripped of your (Meta)humanity and moulded into a member of a Soldier S squad.

Ahh where would tyranny be without drugs, BTLs and Personafixes.

Yeah, it was bad, real bad. vegm.gif
Spike
Nezumi: ah, the old Banality of Evil route. Not to my taste, but a perfectly valid one.

My main reference to cannabalism is the desperation of survivors. Donner party, soccer teams in the mountains after plane crashes, stuff like that. I imagine in the barrens sometimes that desperate survivor situation is 'Tuesday'. Its not like they don't grow up knowing that people are food... what with the ghouls and all. But thats only in the barrens, and not everyday occurences. In fact, I thought I only used the word once or twice in the entire OP, and that in relation to feral children, who are more animals than man at that point. (and Gibsonian....)

KK: Normally I skim over your posts, but this one was interesting (I hate to say but I'm never in the mood to hear about other peoples long running characters....sorry).

That's certainly a route. Orwellian to say the least. I remember as a child looking over the wall ( or on one occasion, riding down the Autobahn between endless miles of concrete wall...) and all I can remember is how lifeless it was. No one to see.

This could lead to an interesting debate over the merits of Orwellian dystopias and Darwinian Dystopias (and the man himself continues to roll over in his grave at the abuse of his ideas....).

Though I'd still like to see more examples too...
Synner667
But is it Cyberpunk ??
Or just a Dark Future ??
Is it really any different than this realworld ??


A Pseudo-Utopia is much darker and much more horrid [For example, the one in Taslorian's CyberGeneration]..
..RFID tag, at birth - "in case of medical emergency, we can get to you quickly"
..A Spooksquad in various guises are almost guaranteed, and almost never seen - but why would they have to be Human ??
..Benevolent leaders won't have people want to overthrow them - But who says they are the real leaders [just read a lovely Cthulhu story where the various royal families around the world are Cthuloid Mythos crossbreeds] ??
..Any dissenters must be terrorists [such as the Roleplayers or Wiccans in GURPS Cyberworld].


Many future-based novels have constant surveillance, the important thing isn't the surveilling - it's the information gathered.
As we in the UK has been discovering in the last few years, just being watched isn't much good unless you act on it. There's too much information for anyone to keep track of, and the equipment involved is often sub-standard, so it's not that difficult to evade the consequences.

In real terms, to do constant monitoring requires lots and lots of manpower..
..Or much more powerful computers to do the real-time analysis and recognition than has hitherto been seen in any edition of SR - even a single AI wouldn't be upto it.

Things such as who operates it and has access to the data is the big decider for any widespread surveillance..
..Because your self-centered Corps aren't going to share, and in fact would probably have replaced governments to be that omnipresent.


Brian Stableford has written some novels in a highly surveilled society set about 500 in the future ["Architects of Emortality" is one].
Cthulhudreams
I have a divided society of haves and have nots, the have nots are great depression esq poor with no social services, and the haves are involved in high powered bare knuckle cigar chomping corporate warfare, and will stop at nothing to boost profit - sort of like bear sterns, and like bear sterns they are all one step away from being in the bread line.
fulcra
I prefer a rather non-dystopic shadowrun. I do not like the concept that nearly everyone with a SIN "belongs" to a Corporation. The use of "wageslave" by people working for a yearly salary I find unrealistic. There are still millions of companies out there, and working for a minor Renruku subsidiary doesn't mean Renruku owns your soul. You can still quit and go work somewhere else. There is still a majority of civilization that is trying to live a normal life of going to work, eating, and sleeping, while having some fun in between.

I imagine it's just like that in Iraq. Between the bombings and chaos, most people are just trying to go to work, make some money, feed their families, and have enough left over for luxuries, while avoiding the nasty messes.

Obviously crime is significantly more rampant, but when there is a firefight during "rush hour" in traffic, it still makes the news as "wow" factor, and the UCAS government certainly applies political pressure on LoneStar to show affirmative action to prevent such future incidents.

That's how I like to view it anyway. smile.gif
Spike
Ah. What we have here is a fairly prototypical example of the Municipal Citizen...

I envy you your cocoon... though I fear for what sleeps inside.


Lyonheart
Allow me to make a Modest Proposal....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (spike)
KK: Normally I skim over your posts, but this one was interesting (I hate to say but I'm never in the mood to hear about other peoples long running characters....sorry).

...no offence taken. I do the same when it comes to a lot of long winded posts myself, particularly those involving rule nit picks or the latest minmax monster critique. I've even passed over whole sections of a thread (or bailed entirely) when I sensed it was just becoming an argument for the sake of arguing, or when a derail of what was an interesting thread gains a life of it's own (like the never ending "Mage vs. Sammy" debate which seems to creep in just about everywhere - and if it does here, so help me my psychic schoolgirl Umeko's going to make heads explode grinbig.gif ).

Synner667
QUOTE (fulcra @ Mar 18 2008, 11:01 PM) *
I prefer a rather non-dystopic shadowrun. I do not like the concept that nearly everyone with a SIN "belongs" to a Corporation. The use of "wageslave" by people working for a yearly salary I find unrealistic. There are still millions of companies out there, and working for a minor Renruku subsidiary doesn't mean Renruku owns your soul. You can still quit and go work somewhere else. There is still a majority of civilization that is trying to live a normal life of going to work, eating, and sleeping, while having some fun in between.

I imagine it's just like that in Iraq. Between the bombings and chaos, most people are just trying to go to work, make some money, feed their families, and have enough left over for luxuries, while avoiding the nasty messes.

Obviously crime is significantly more rampant, but when there is a firefight during "rush hour" in traffic, it still makes the news as "wow" factor, and the UCAS government certainly applies political pressure on LoneStar to show affirmative action to prevent such future incidents.

That's how I like to view it anyway. smile.gif


That's much more how I view SR [not that the world I put my Players through is standard SR] - some bits are shinier and some bits are dirtier, but it's not that dissimilar to the realworld today
Ice Hammer
In my shadowrun universe, there are big differences between the corporations, especially Aztechnology. Aztechnology is a very big evil. Sure, it has its benign and innoculous business ventures under various subsidiaries, but for the most part, it has motivations and goals that no other megacorporation shares. The corporation itself is motivated by revenge. Revenge that the Corporate Court dared intefere with its operations in Aztlan with its Omega Order, and the desire to even the score with the other megacorporations. Revenge against Ghostwalker, and his interference in their operations in Denver. Aztechnology is also obsesssed with power, whether or not it be land, capital, knowledge, or magic, and obtaining it at any and all cost. Aztechnology is dangerously ambitious, and it firmly believes that there should be no limits or boundaries that it cannot cross to reach its ambitions. Certainly, the other megacorporations have blood on their hands, as they have pushed the evelope on various programs and research and they do spin things to make people think they are better than what they are; but clearly not to the extent of Aztechnology. With the other megacorporations, they at least bother with their reputuations. They do Public Relations, they give to charities, they do works for the community. Aztechnology prefers to use its dark reputation as a means to discourage individuals from messing with them. "If you mess with us, you'll end up being our next ritual sacrafice."

There is a distinct difference in the cultures of the other megacorporations. Expecially the Japanese megacorps. There is still a strong sense of tradition, and honor. If you disgrace your corporation, your family or yourself, then you will definitely be looked down upon by everyone around you. If your a wage slave and you're fired, then you will not be hired by another japanese megacorp. If your in a very high position and you disgrace your company, than suicide is not out of the question. The japanese corporations are definitely very male dominated, unlike Ares and NeoNet and other non-japanese corporations, who have a high mixture of professional women in the workplace as well.
It trolls!
Well, I'm pretty much under the impression that in 4th ed, Aztechnology is finally no worse nor better than the other AAAs. I had a feeling that along the ED-crossover/Tzitzimine arc, something had snapped with many authors and GMs. During 3rd ed, I joined many games where if any major crime against humanity was commited, it was always Aztech. Large shipments of BTLs systematically being smuggled into the UCAS? Of course their Aztech-brand! Countless children kidnapped in downtown? You'll find them in the next secret Aztech lab! Lolipops stolen from toddlers? It was done by blood spirits from Aztlan!
It almost gave me a feeling as if all the other megas were kind and loving family businesses.
Fortune
Aztechnology, who owns Stuffer Shack and supplies the majority of consumable goods to North America (and possibly the world), has the best PR among the triple AAAs. All the 'evil' stuff that is discussed in the books is not public knowledge, and as far as most people are concerned, Aztechnology is no worse, and maybe even better than any of the other AAA corporations.
b1ffov3rfl0w
Yeah, I'm not sure why Icehammer runs it differently, but that's kind of cool -- I mean, they've got Blood Spirits, Ares has Bug Spirits, S-K is run by a giant firebreathing lizard, Procter and Gamble actually has Satan as the Chairman of the Board, why not. But for one corp to be like "screw it, we own so much stuff that it doesn't matter if you know we're evil", that's pretty neat.
Fuchs
I run a less dystopian Shadowrun. The base is our current time's excessess, but more pronounced.

- Big gap between the rich and the rest. Significant gap between the Citizens and the SINless.
- Corps are amoral, their goal is profit above anything else, but they care about their public reputation - since it influences their bottomline.
- Governments, at least those of industrial nations, still have power - enough so that corps manipulate them with bribes, and economic pressure to get more favorable business conditions, or military backup.
- Propaganda, advertising, spin doctoring all has taken new leaps, with viral marketing, and multi-level campaigns up to "whenever you hear our corps' name you'll feel warm" mood-feeds built in company ware.
- Ghouls are not considered people in most countries. They are actively hunted.
- Shapeshifters and spirits are not people in many countries either, but the government doesn't hunt them - but doesn't protect them either from groups who do hunt them.
- SINless are not citizens, but they are still humans. It's just that they got no one to care about their rights, and are easily branded as criminals by whatever media someone is paying to in case there's a need to cover up some incident.
- Society has become more liberal, like the roaring 20s on speed. Drugs, sex and augmentations are common.
paws2sky
I'm (more or less) on board with fulcra and Fuchs on this.

I never bought into SR has being especially dystopian, especially not compared to Cyberpunk 2020, many of the cyberpunk genre novels, etc. I mean, you have magic and elves and dragons and whatever tooling around with your chipped samurai and deckers/hackers, and what not. If anything, SR is high-tech steampunk, really.

I guess you could say my Shadowrun usually has a post-cyberpunk flavor, though I don't specifically force (or even encourage) my players to be the "good guys."
Blade
I try to get a dystopic/cyberpunk feeling, but most of the time I end up with something closer to postcyberpunk frown.gif (except that my players don't get to be good guys, even if they try hard - it's even worst if they try hard actually)

But here are some of the "uncommon" (at least I haven't seen them in a lot of games) dystopian ideas I try to apply:
* Magic isn't a light of hope. Magic users tend to consider themselves as superior (when they aren't downright crazy) and always seek for more power, whatever the price is.
* There's no such thing as a middle class, or if there is it's a minority. You either are rich or poor. Being poor doesn't mean that you don't get all the NERPS and can't go shopping to the mall. It just means that to be able to, you'll have to accept whatever the corp asks from you.
* Pollution is everywhere. The sky is never exactly blue, there's always some kind of grey filter in between. The food and drink mess with your organism, but you just take more medication to counter that.
* If you're not in a good neighborhood, public services are at best inefficient: the tap water is either murky or reeks of chlorine, power loss are frequent, so is garbage collecting.
* Few people realize how bad it is, nobody cares
Wesley Street
My Shadowrun is essentially Snow Crash with a dash of Hellblazer. Satirical, darkly comedic, with lots of homages to modern-day problems in a fantastical futuristic setting. For example, a PC sent a guardian spirit into a room full of devil rats and closed the door. When the door opened I described how it appeared that the devil rat pack had been dropped into a blender with body parts rolling everywhere and rats jammed into the walls and ceilings with their little legs twitching. That had everyone laughing. I also use AR to parody animated commercials I see on television. Nukit Burger has a line-up of animated mascots (like the McDonald Land Gang), two of which are anthropomorphic ketchup bottles named Katch and Chup. They enjoy rubbing and squeezing each other's long, slender necks until they squirt.

So... yeah.
It trolls!
I try to get as dark and gritty as I can get the setting to reasonably be. There's of course a strong dichotomy between SINners and unentities. The police if only there to protect the former, and to protect the former from the latter.

Poverty in the eyes of most SINners is of course one's own fault. If you leave the sheltered areas of Downtown or Bellevue, you enter a world, where the worth of a life declines down to approx. 1 sandwich. There's still some protection in low-level districts like Renton but noone in his right mind will enter Redmond or Puyallup if he can avoid it. In the Barrens, you're pretty much a citizen of your local gang turf and kept alive because you're working for your block's gang, paying them to not hurt you or because you're one of their regular BTL customers. Some gangs have hijacked power and matrix access and are selling it within the area which helps patch up the spotty matrix access. They usually geek each other over border issues, drugs, guns... whatever reason they find. But if they spot an equal or more powerful opponent, they cower like rats.

Behind the facades, in my world, every atrocity is possible - there's always someone who's either profiting or gaining pleasure from it and some poor sap escaping from his downtown, Lone Star protected cradle into the Shadows has to eagerly fight to keep the tiniest bit of humanity.

The corps are purely profit-oriented, humanity doesn't count, except when their public reputation could be damaged. Against that we have a government which is strong enough to not be the helpless playball of the corps, but on the other hand is an instrument of power for the upper class. The superficially democratic society is kept in control in the ways that the citizens are kept in panic and distress because behind every corner there might be shadowrunners and other hoodlums after your life, the NaN might attack the UCAS any day and of course there's always terrorists. That way, the public will always greet more rigid surveillance laws and watering down of the separation of powers as a necessary evil to protect them from the many threats they imagine there to be.
Sponge
QUOTE (Blade @ Mar 19 2008, 10:19 AM) *
my players don't get to be good guys, even if they try hard - it's even worst if they try hard actually


That's rather harsh, isn't it? If they really want to play good people you don't let them?

DS
cryptoknight
QUOTE (fulcra @ Mar 18 2008, 06:01 PM) *
I prefer a rather non-dystopic shadowrun. I do not like the concept that nearly everyone with a SIN "belongs" to a Corporation. The use of "wageslave" by people working for a yearly salary I find unrealistic. There are still millions of companies out there, and working for a minor Renruku subsidiary doesn't mean Renruku owns your soul. You can still quit and go work somewhere else. There is still a majority of civilization that is trying to live a normal life of going to work, eating, and sleeping, while having some fun in between.

I imagine it's just like that in Iraq. Between the bombings and chaos, most people are just trying to go to work, make some money, feed their families, and have enough left over for luxuries, while avoiding the nasty messes.

Obviously crime is significantly more rampant, but when there is a firefight during "rush hour" in traffic, it still makes the news as "wow" factor, and the UCAS government certainly applies political pressure on LoneStar to show affirmative action to prevent such future incidents.

That's how I like to view it anyway. smile.gif


I'm certainly closer to this than the ultra dark stuff... I keep thinking more like Dark Angel or the new Bionic Woman... some people are dark, but there is still a place for friendship, loyalty, honor, faith, etc. And while it's easier to fall to the temptation of ignoring such attributes, those that do resist the temptation tend to come out more on top in the end. Perhaps not on a global scale, but when they feel they can trust their team to watch their backs, and their loyalty 3+ contacts to not sell them out every single chance they can get, they manage to get things done that no other team of backstabbers could hope to.
Spike
Actually their loyalty 3 contacts would only sell them out about half the time.... smile.gif


No, I wouldn't contradict the rules on loyalty six contacts (for example)...
Ryu
I would not call my SR world dystopian. People care for each other, its just that the world is much more criminal. You protect your own group of people, but work against everyone else.
b1ffov3rfl0w
QUOTE (Fuchs @ Mar 19 2008, 05:02 AM) *
like the roaring 20s on speed. Drugs, sex and augmentations are common.


Funny you should say that: meth (Benzedrine) was used in the 20s to treat asthma, hay fever and depression. And of course as a highly effective treatment for not being euphoric and excited, or if you really needed to clean your floor with a toothbrush but didn't feel like it.

EDIT: a cooler name, but not until the 1930s: Pervitin.
Blade
QUOTE (Sponge @ Mar 19 2008, 08:12 PM) *
That's rather harsh, isn't it? If they really want to play good people you don't let them?

DS


Actually I let them play good people, but I don't let them "save the world". (Well, if all my players want to play "save the world"... I'd ask someone else to GM, or offer them to play another game.)
They are criminals, most of their job aren't about giving flowers. Most of the time a run will destroy something rather than create something. Shooting people in the face isn't a nice thing to do, even if their boss is "The Evil", they're just doing their job, they've got a family...

But more importantly, the whole world is rotten, and isn't black and white. It's hard to know what's the good solution... and sometimes there just isn't any good solution.
My favorite game with "world-saver" characters ended up with them discovering a ship full of about 300 children of all ages, used as guinea pigs for genetech experiments, most of them sick (some kind of cancer) because of the experiments. The characters had lots of karma (there even was a character whose assault rifle had karma!), were able to kill any opposition in one combat turn, they even had a PC call one of his zeppelins to level a building... but what could they do for these children? They spent at least one hour (both in and out game) trying to find a solution, and finally trying to decide whether it was better to sink the ship with the children and sparing them an awful life, or letting them out to live these awful lives in the hope that at least one of them would be able to have a happy life. Finally one of them decided to call the cops and everyone left before they arrived. The children were sent to the newly opened orphanage of a fundation... A few weeks later, they tragically died in an accident and the black market got a sudden increase of child organs. I planned but didn't play a sequel involving an investigation of the matter which revealed that it was all much more complicated than what it seems (and could lead to the runners doing further damage).

This was a little extreme, but I knew the players would enjoy that. My aim wasn't to punish the players for wanting to save the world, but to show them that the world is rotten and there's little a Shadowrunner - even a prime runner - can do to make things better
Synner667
QUOTE (paws2sky @ Mar 19 2008, 12:49 PM) *
I guess you could say my Shadowrun usually has a post-cyberpunk flavor, though I don't specifically force (or even encourage) my players to be the "good guys."


I'd not heard of post-cyberpunk before..
..But reading about it, it seems I'm not running post-cyberpunk - or even cyberpunk frown.gif

Tech-noir is more my style..
..With added 'bits' wink.gif
b1ffov3rfl0w
QUOTE (Synner667 @ Mar 26 2008, 07:04 PM) *
I'd not heard of post-cyberpunk before..


Post-cyberpunk is probably best represented by The Diamond Age.

As for Transhumanism vs cyberpunk, I think that it's kind of the haves vs the have-nots, or that while transhumanists have used technology to become more than human, cyberpunks have lost their humanity to technology.
Serial_Peacemaker
Well there was the time I had people try to randomly kill my guys for their organs.On the whole I do sometimes make things a mite too bright and shiny. I'm actually trying to work on a sheet of random things to drive home the dystopian nature of things though.
Synner667
Rather than random violence [or even planned violence], which can occur in any bad place in any genre..
..Shouldn't dystopian cyberpunk also involve acidic rain, weapon software glitches, unaccepted ID, bank accounts emptied, currency fluctuations, bad reactions to food, etc ??
Synner667
QUOTE (b1ffov3rfl0w @ Mar 27 2008, 02:25 AM) *
Post-cyberpunk is probably best represented by The Diamond Age.

As for Transhumanism vs cyberpunk, I think that it's kind of the haves vs the have-nots, or that while transhumanists have used technology to become more than human, cyberpunks have lost their humanity to technology.


Hmmm..
..Virtually no-one on these boards seems to have lost any Humanity to technology, several actively stating that cramming the human body with technology has little or no effect on their humanity [low Essense representing low Humanity].


Diamond Age is great, and was an influence on how to do Steampunk, with better tech, for the games I run [though, several other things also influenced me - Aeon Trinity, hard wired, Cthulhu, Bladerunner, Manga, Bubblegum Crisis, AD Police, Fire In The Sky, CP:2020, etc]

GURPS Transhuman is great for ideas, and a good look at the genre [and shows how and why fleeting 'ware is].
Fuchs
The most dystopian aspect in my game is the wide gulf between the rich and the poor.

Money buys health, almost eternal youth, beauty, and the power to realise one's dreams.
Spike
Personally, on the cyberpunk/transhuman line: As a diehard Gibson fan, I can state with some authority that cyberpunk is sort of a chrysalis phase, the endless series of moments before we make that leap to transhumanism.

Neuromancer had AI's taking on species traits (mating and producing offspring), becoming self pepetuating if you will.

The Virtual Light series 'ended' when the nano-fac's and the Idoru got together and 'changed the world'. Cyberpunk BECOMES Transhumanism, or else it's not Cyberpunk at all.

Post-Cyberpunk I'm less clear on.


Though I am certain that you could still run cyberpunk games in an already 'transhuman' setting. As a 'Genre' Transhumanism focuses on those who have made the leap already, but there will always be those who have been left behind, always new leaps to be made. Face it: The Neuromancer novel already contained many elements of a Transhumanist world. It had AI's with citizenship, had people who existed as recordings of brain scans, had people who were designer built for their jobs (the vatcloned ninja)... the question of 'what is human' had been asked, and nobody bothered to listen.
Wesley Street
QUOTE (b1ffov3rfl0w @ Mar 26 2008, 09:25 PM) *
Post-cyberpunk is probably best represented by The Diamond Age.


Better examples would be Jeff Noon's VURT which combines dystopia, drug culture, mysticism and video games, Grant Morrison's Invisibles, Jamie Delano's Narcopolis, Douglas Rushkoff's Ecstasy Club and Charles Stross' Accelerando. Switch out a lot of the old circuits and metal with pharmacology, genegineering, non-Blade Runner-style dystopias and nanotech and that's post-cyberpunk.
WhiteWolf
QUOTE (Spike @ Mar 18 2008, 01:27 PM) *
To further muddle the situation, the biggest church, the Catholic Church, has managed, barely, to keep up with the times. They are considered a private corporation, legally, and issue SINs to the faithful, and standing churches are now Corporate Territory, a new twist on old themes. Sure, a Catholic Sin won't get you a job in most places, but it still grants legitimacy.


I'm not sure how close you wish to have your Shadowrun world represent real life, but the Catholic Church would not worry about keeping up with the times. That is not the Church's mission and history shows that they tend to lag behind the times. But that is only if you wish to be little more accurate; otherwise its your world go with what you think. biggrin.gif

I read the description in Street Magic where it states the Church's rulling on the use of magic. I was amazed at how well they described proceedures for the doctrine on magic even so far as to publish a Latin title, Imago Dei; but when they started describing how the Catholic Church was the first one to rule on the use of magic and all the other denominations fell in afterwards was disappointing for the Catholic Church would be the last ones to except it, if they even would. The past has shown this; a prime and recent example would be on Birth Control (the Church ruled against it but only after all the other denominations had allowed it), but I have digressed. smile.gif

I enjoyed the descriptions you made for a lot of the other areas; especially the Barrens and Street Docs.
Spike
Thank's Whitewolf. I think my phrase choices were bad there. I'm not catholic, though I find the study of religion facinating, and the Catholic Church is a wealth of interesting bits to play with (in study...)..

Regardless: Bad choice of words on my part, mea culpa. I don't think they would fail to keep involved with the political and legal landscape, and if extranationality and the ability to offer SINs to their flock came up, I could totally see them doing it, though 'incorporating', as we understand it, would probably be right out.
WhiteWolf
Your welcome Spike! No need to ask for forgives though. biggrin.gif As I said I was only providing the information incase you want to set your Shadowrun world as close to what might happen in the real world as possible. smile.gif
NockerGeek
I'm pretty much with fulcra and Fuchs. My Shadowrun world is just today's world, turned up to eleven and extrapolated out to 2070 (with the appropriate adjustments for magic, of course). The gulf between the poor and the wealthy is wider, the mean streets of the urban ghettos are meaner, corporations are greedier and more exploitive (is that possible? biggrin.gif), and everything's been commercialized to hell and back. The average SINner, though, probably doesn't notice much, beyond maybe an increased focus on personal security. There's probably not much middle class - just the high end of lower class and the lower end of upper class - but considering how cheap, ubiquitous, and realistic all the entertainment is now, who can be bothered to raise a fuss apart from the occasional policlub member?

Greed and apathy aren't dystopian; they're current events. smile.gif
b1ffov3rfl0w
QUOTE (Synner667 @ Mar 27 2008, 02:41 AM) *
Hmmm..
..Virtually no-one on these boards seems to have lost any Humanity to technology, several actively stating that cramming the human body with technology has little or no effect on their humanity [low Essense representing low Humanity].


Not in a silly "x amount of computers implanted in your forearm makes you y less of a person" sort of way, I mean "does the machine serve humans or do humans serve the machine (and the corporation is a machine)?"

Does the technology alienate you from society (again, not in a game-mechanics sort of way) or does it become part of society? I think that when your main use of technology is for subverting security and being better at fighting (both sort of anti-social activities), it's going to lean more towards "alienate".
b1ffov3rfl0w
QUOTE (Spike @ Mar 27 2008, 12:34 PM) *
Thank's Whitewolf. I think my phrase choices were bad there. I'm not catholic, though I find the study of religion facinating, and the Catholic Church is a wealth of interesting bits to play with (in study...)..

Regardless: Bad choice of words on my part, mea culpa. I don't think they would fail to keep involved with the political and legal landscape, and if extranationality and the ability to offer SINs to their flock came up, I could totally see them doing it, though 'incorporating', as we understand it, would probably be right out.


I assume they would call it something other than a SIN, though. Could be confusing.

"Confess your sins to the priest."

"Um okay, G36DHIL3T7T7JJE52, UCAS-H52OLTA6B2P2URS21, and B08DJPW6U8I8ZP99, but they're all fake. Is that allowed?
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