They base setting of Shadowrun has always been a dystopian world where Megacorps care nothing for the "little guys" (and they don't care about other Metahumans besides dwarves) and run rampant. Despite high level of technological advancement most people live in squalor that is probably worse than what the homeless live in now a days. Most of the world lives in lower class levels while a super small percentage lives the high life. And protection from crime and other dangers is sold to the highest bidder.

But is that the way we all play it?

I've found that I've preferred to play Shadowrun as more of a Future Imperfect setting where while things are bad, they are no worse than they are now a days. Where Megacorps care more about their bottom line, but also want to make sure their public image is clean so they do alot of social work. Where most of the world is middle class rather than nothing but low class and high class. I tend to treat it as 80% of the 1st world is middle class while 15% is high class and the remaining is low class. I like to consider that technological advances that are dirt cheap help pretty much everyone in their day to day life rather than just the privileged lucky classes.

Am I alone here? Has anyone else deviated from canon and created a less dystopian view of the Sixth World?

"future imperfect"...
...What a lovely phrase.

I use today, moved on a few decades, with nicer gadgets [at least partly based on the fact that 50 years ago people thought we'd be eating food pills, holidaying on the moon, wearing silver suits and have a fully automated house - and yet, the world of 2008 isn't that different from theirs].

There's so many bad things in this time [widescale government corruption, small wars, ecological disaster, serial killers, greed, widespread crime, powerful criminal organisations, globalscale corporations, killers-for-hire, gangs, dehibilitatiung poverty, human weakness, ever richer rich people, fractured society, slave labour, people trafficking, incompetence and random street violence] that there's nothing missing from the supposed SR world.

Both also have their share of wonder, love, honour, personal strength, goals, inspiration...
...So I think SR as the world advanced is fine.

I run Shadowrun as it is out of the book: the gap between rich and poor has widened, and less than 1% of the population controls 99% of the wealth. In short, most people are in debt to the megacorps. Although there may be some corporate middle manager with some scruples and concern for the poor, most just accept the ways of the world as the way things are.
In short, the real heroes are the ones that make a difference for the better.

I run 60/30/9/1

With 60% being either street, squatter, or low. 30% are middle. About 9 percent are high and the last 1% are Luxury. With maybe 5,000 or so people world wide being in the ultra luxury level (net wealth of upwards of 500,000,000 ).

...for the most, it's Future Imperfect. I like the idea that there may still be a few a few islands of sanity out there. I occasionally include pockets of dystopia sprinkled in here and there, such as The Serbian dictatorship I had in my RiS campaign (very "Big Brother" in the Orwellian sense).

I think part of this might stem from perspective. I happen to be a fat, happy American living a cushy lifestyle just like most of the other posters on this board. But for every one of us there's some poor SOB in Central Africa or western China who thinks the world is already living in a dystopian shithole.

In my version of SR - Seattle, 1/4 - 1/3 of the population is living a hand-to-mouth squatter lifestyle in the Barrens with no job, no healthcare, poor nutrition, and rampant violence. Half the population has regular jobs and works 100+ hours per week struggling desperately not to be fired and have to move to the Barrens. These wageslaves live a low lifestyle, on average, but have their basic necessities (food, shelter, medicine, schooling, etc) although they're heavily in debt. Only the relatively few 'highly-trained specialists' are able to command a decent standard of living.

As a related question, how would the events (VITAS, the Crash, the Awakening, etc) of the SR-timeline effect the first-, second-, and third-world differently? I would assume the Crash would hit the most technological countries the hardest, while third-world countries would have little impact (there's only so far that you can sink). VITAS would have hit everyone more-or-less equally, with maybe a bias towrds hurting countries with dense populations and fast travel the most. The awakening would give third-world countries an unexpected power boost, assuming that everyone got an equal percentage of mages relative to their population.

A future more imperfect than the one we are steering towards is a pretty dystopian world. So for me, there is no difference.
In some ways, the world of SR is even preferable to the one I will die in.

Definitely future imperfect. Basically I've just spread the pain around. All that terrible stuff that I read about in the news is actually happening right outside my door rather than a world away.


On the topic of VITAS, SOA had a very interesting write up on India and how VITAS absolutely mangled it's society. High population size/density combined with inadequate health services meant that simply incomprehensible numbers of people died. Also India is supposed to be one of, if not the, magical super power by 2070. If only a small fraction of your population is magically active but your population is 20 times larger than anyone elses... Well it's that and the fact that they tend to be more meta/magic friendly as a culture (8 feet tall, multiple limbs/horns/eyes, unusual skin color? Welcome! Welcome!)

I've played in one dystopian game set in Russia where everything was horrible and kicking babies was common place.
That lasted exactly one session because I realized that I just didn't find it very fun to uhm... have fun in a truly dystopian world with no escape. I guess I must have some light to highlight my shadows.

I see it as a sliding scale of freedom vs comfort. The only the SINless squatters are truly free. Those who work for themselves or for small independent businesses tend to have low lifestyles, but are significantly more free than the middle class who have cushy megacorp jobs. Once you reach the upper class everything in your life is calculated socio-political maneuvering at this point, you can't marry for love without risking your position so you marry for power, instead. You even choose the number and genders of your children to maximize your social benefit. As any imperfection can cost you your positions your choices become fewer and fewer and the more gilded your cage is the more cramped it becomes. Even the most powerful men are ultimately slaves to their own success.

I noticed an article recently that in the cities (such as NYC and DC), it's starting to be a sign of wealthiness to have 3 kids, instead of the typical 1 or 2. Three kids is the new status symbol for the wealthy living in the city. I'll try and dig that up.

edit: whoop there it is...

Wow... everything moves in cycles doesn't it? I'm waiting for the legitimate harem to make a come back.

Dystopian. You kill a devil rat, you don't kick it back into the sewer, you put it on a stick so's you can roast it and have yourself a nice dinner.

~J

I'll be aiming at a cross between the two. Future Imperfect for the SINers, and Dystopian for the SINless.

Things are, however, starting to improve by the start of 2070, now that the damage done by Crash 2.0 has been complete, and no major riots or catastorphies are on the horizon...

...

Well, New Seattle counts 32% of the plex's inhabitants as poor. But of course that does not account for the SINless.

In German newspapers there is a discussion these days about a government report that shows 25% of Germans to be poor if there was no financial support for them from the state.

What does that mean? Todays situation is worse than most thought it to be. The situation in Shadowrun is even worse than that. To me that sounds dystopian enough.

The thread-starter's 15/80/5 would in fact be an utopian setting.

Honestly, given the way things are IRL, some parts of Shadowrun Kanon actually color a pretty bright future...

Yeah, in Shadowrun, there was at least one Dragon thinking about the common person, and willing to listen to the true voice of freedom, the Neo-@s!

Future Imperfect. Shadowrun is today... just weirder. The idea of a dystopia is a world without hope. And that's not how I choose to view any world. All that grim 'n gritty and woe-is-me gets on my nerves after awhile. I'm sure even in the Redmond Barrens there are neighborhood block parties. Unless you're in the middle of flat-out genocide, go to the dirtiest, most crime-infested city anywhere and you'll find a dance party.

Very true. I had a rave going on in Puyallup Barrens that spanned an entire Tenement Building, and spilled out into the streets.

Very good emotional cover against Astral Perception!

And the Sprawl Ganger was able to score some eX.

CanRay: remember, the Neo-As are anarcho-capitalists. While some of them decide, for their own reasons, to be benevolent, in general if you can't make your cred you can die in a gutter for all they care (unless dying on an operating table makes them more money).

~J

Which sums up Shadowrunners nicely. And all of the characters that I have described in my stories as well. (Well, Nas is more of an Adrenaline Junkie, but there's also the money!)

Frankly, any group of people are going to put their own spin on things. The sad part is, said group is probably the one that wants to get as close to accurate as possible. Can't make a good profit if you don't know the whole story after all.

Problem is, information is also valuable, so, you gets what you pay for with Neo-@s.

My personal take on the SR world:

Back in teh 20's and 30's, we "hit rock bottom." The political instability, the surge of corporate power, and general unrest reached a creshendo. It was probably a good thing that this played out the way the did, when they did, in North America, because I could easily envision the entire continent being turned into a vast toxic domain and/or Horror entry point if the war with the NAN had kept going.

Since then, things have been improving, but we have a long way to go. Like some other posters noted, there is a sliding scale between lifestyle/comfort and personal freedom; the more you have of one, the less you have of the other... usually. The only people who really have it all are those living at the upper-upper end of the Luxury lifestyle (the ".01 percenters"), where money can buy both freedom and comfort. On the other end of the spectrum, you have the squatters and street people who can't seem to get things together to out of the Barrens or who choose to live there so they don't have to deal with the rest of society.

Despite progress, there have been numerous setbacks along the way. "Two steps forward, one step back," as they say. The recent consolidations in the corporate world and NAN, ejection of the Azzies from from Denver, annexation of LA by the PCC, grand unified theory of magic, and so on have all had uncomfortable, but ultimately stabilizing effects. The SURGE hysteria, Big D's death, Brackhaven's election, and so on were certainly steps backward.

The corruption of SIN databases across the globe was double edged... on one hand, huge numbers of legitimate citizens lost their identities and livelihoods, which was very bad. On the other hand, the system became much, much more exploitable, causing a huge drop in the price of Fake SINs; good for both runners and the SINless who couldn't afford to get "legal" documentation any other way.

There's a dramatic balancing act being performed between all the powers that be. If anyone gets to big for their britches, then without a doubt, someone will move to put them back in check. No one wants a loose cannon like Ghostwalker going and mucking things up, but some things, especially angry Greater Dragons, can't really be helped.

And here's where the shadowrunners come in. Whether hired by corp, government, policlub, syndicate, or private interest, shadowrunners exist to help maintain or tip the balance of power, they maintain a certain level of neutrality and will work for anyone with a solid reputation. Some runners choose a different path and become company men and women, working for a particular interest exclusively (not necessarily a corp, despite the name). Usually, these runners agree with their employer on a philosophical level, though more than a few are motivated by a steady paycheck.



So, anyway, that's my take on it. The 6th world can be a pretty lousy place, but its not hopeless. There are still lots of motivated people who want to make a difference.

-paws

I'm in the camp that can't tell the difference. Today, only with magic and matrix? pretty distopian to me.

Honestly, I run it the opposite of Canray. I figure, as the megacorporate grip gets tighter, life gets worse for the people caught in it, but more slips outside of it. If you are in the corp zone, life gets worse every year. You have to use AR to see a blue sky anymore. Your bathroom breaks count against your vacation time. You buy your food from the corp using corp script, you rent your flat the same way, and you swear your salary is calculated so that it's exactly what it takes to make ends meet and pay only the interest on your debts. You can't get a better job without borrowing more money to get "highly reccommended" augmentation and finding ways to blackmail all the other canidates. You can't quit because your Non-compete clause of your contract prevents you from working for your corp's competitors for the rest of your life, and since the megas are in every market, everyone is a competitor. You can't strike because unionization is considered treason and sedition, and punished by the corp security much the same way. The world seems constantly in a state of emergency, and all the emergency powers and "temporary" measures never go away. You traded your freedom for a peice of the pie, and every year the pie gets smaller and the boss takes a bigger slice.

Outside the system, the world is still a mess. There are more problems for people to deal with. But the people have the freedom outside to actually make a difference, to come up with solutions and try to implement them. A sinless father may have to scavenge dumpsters, but he can spend the evening with his family. You may be eating devil rat on a stick, but it's with friends around a campfire and you can take your damn time. You may not be able to afford the longhaul to stay up all night, but then again, you don't NEED to, either.

Control is orwellian in the AAA zones, and non-existant in the Z-zones. The corps make all the numbers look like they get better every year, because they exclude anything else. The same police force patrolling half the beat. Pollution is down because we've cleaned up what we can see from our windows and concentrated it all in toxic zones. The same money in fewer hands. Imagine 10 people in a room with all their stuff. Now six of them toss 4 out the door, and proclaim "look, now everyone is richer!" And the tighter the grip gets, the more they exclude, the less stable the game gets, but the more in control they feel. Right before the whole house of cards collapses, they'll be singing "look, it's never been higher than this!" thinking everything is always going to get better.

Those sinners in their gated communities may think they have less problems than the sinless, but really, they're just paying someone else to deal with it or put it off. They're hiding in their bunkers trying to pretend it's business as usual when the world has fundamentally changed outside. it's teh corporate way of doing things that has made the world a mess, and those within that culture can't even think of changing it. So they continue to make things worse every year. The sinless deal with disproportionately more of the downsides, but they are also the ones who are figuring out how to live without that system, and when that system finally collapses they will be the ones to chart a new course.

...of course served with a fine vintage ThunderTrain2020.

"Whoa now! That's high dollar stuff! You gettin' all sophisticated on us, man? 'Cause, you know we don't like sellouts 'round these parts. Hate to think yer goin' corp after all this time..."
- Klaxon (troll ganger)

There is also plenty of room for Anarcho-communism. Hell, most street gangs are more communal than capitalistic. There are also plenty of street tribes and pirate families, which are anarcho-communist almost by definition.

Future imperfect sliding into true dystopia.
Everything is rigged to slide even further in to the pit than it already is and only occasionally, can a courageous soul hurl back the dispair and bring back something good and pure for some precious few.

None of which, however, are part of the Neo-Anarchist movement.

~J

That isn't future imperfect... That's right now.

Yes, I have worked as Tech Support.

Yes, I am cynical.