Last night I was re-reading Ivy and Chrome and was suddenly struck by how much time has passed in the SR universe.
We now are in the 2070's, right? Ivy and Chrome took place in 2051.I was struck by them saying the school kids will be taken by a 'display on 2050's cool" and does anyone still have characters they put through those early adventures, do we think how much they've aged? Those kids in 2051 are now in their 30's and probably have kids of their own. I mean to put in 20'th century time it's like some guy who was in the Korean war under Truman was still running around, top of his game when Richard Nixon was the Johnson for a RL shadowrun at the watergate Hotel, and we all know how that run turned out.


Or that the Secret Service agent who took a bullet for Ronald Regan was still A list when W ordered the invasion of Iraq.

Even if you keep in good condition and ok replace who limbs time is going to wear on you. To read James Bond, A 00 agent is retired from that section at age 35. Think of the tech changes in RL. Even using the Reagan guard idea think of the tech he had access to. Then look at your cell phone. phone/texts/playmusic/ access the freaking internet!

I was shopping for my nephew the other week and could call my sister in law from the store to ask if what I was looking at was acceptable. Pay phones?

Compare movie tech-The 1969 models of UFO with the 1977 Models of Star Wars and the CGI action of Independance Day or Iron Man

Am i alone in having this revelation?

Nope, when I picked up my 4th edition Shadowrun book to run my new game, I was immediately struck by the fact that the game has been around for 20 years, and I've been playing it for that long. While I don't have a character from 1st edition, I do have several from 2nd edition starting in about 1991. Moreover, I've retooled them to use as NPC's in my current game in various capacities ranging from Mr. Johnsons to muscle to other fun stuff.

I don't expect my 2nd and 3rd ed characters to be still alive in 2070. I don't expect many runners to run the shadows for more than 5 years.

We had a poll a while back and I think more telling is that the players (at least here) are now in their late 20's or 30's and sometimes have kids. :Phttp:

CP2020 already had a supplement where you could play either kiddies affected by some technomancerish thing or the now parents would would have been the edgerunners back in 2020.

Shadowrun complicates things because the elf is hardly aged while the Orc is dead.

However I like the thought of characters being brought back after a time.

For example I've got a buddy from college I used to GM for who always talks about playing online with one of their old characters. I could see aging them forward into 4th ed.

I do figure most runners don't got 20 years full tilt. But many probably get sucked back in when the money runs out, or when the situation calls for it. For example the buddies char had become the legal guardian of a 10 year old girl in the old game. She'd be all grown up now, and could be in some trouble. Time to knock the rust off the trapdoor in the basement where he keeps the goodies.

(From a practical point of view having the character brush the dust off means you don't have to worry about the hundreds of runs they'd have done in that span of time. )

in 2005 there was a german SR-novel called "Altes Eisen" (old irons, http://www.amazon.de/Shadowrun-Altes-Eisen...5591&sr=8-1 ) by Andre Wiesler, dealing exactly with that topic. A bunch of guys who were runners in the 50s and are now "retired". The Author dscribes there further live in a very vibrant and humorous way. And his point is: you can never leave the shadows for good.

gave me some great ideas for PCs

The only reason any of my characters have survived more than a year is the campaign died early. I should bring back some old PCs of mine as retired Shadowrunners who have become middlemen for their particular area of expertise, though.

My SR3 Otaku switched directly to SR4 Technomancer. Because in 2060 he was like... 13 years old. Now he fears the coming of Fading.

I also played with the idea of porting my old Wolfshifter character (How old was he? kind a... 3 years) but then i realized how old he would be for a Wolf and i just said "screw that", plus although i excelled at playing him, bis background was idiotic at best (shame on me for that) so i thought up something like "His son" but i considered that lame... i retired the character alltogether and made up something completely new in SR4.

Old Concepts, Characters and Ideas i never really played are now my base for NPCs and Connections and i have a little "Tradition" to connect my characters together, IE that they have a common connection (like Haywire, the Decker) or live in the same neighborhood (or district). I always try to make those things as organic as possible.

Funny, I think about that constantly. It makes all that pink mohawk/punk rock attitude stuff from SR1 feel as dated as legwarmers and shirts that hang off one shoulder. Kids from the 2070s probably laugh at pics of kids in the 2050s using their clunky Casio WK500 electric keyboard-sized decks.

"Nice datajacks, grandpa. Do you plug your Sitz bath into those?"

Hah! My kids are in their 20s.

Peter

I think that sums it up wonderfully. I was imagining some 50's greaser trying to be the guy in 1976 without having changed at all, but you nailed it.

My major problem that I keep having when trying to visualize the style of the runners and of the mass populace is that when cyberpunk was big in the eighties, it was loaded with tons of pomp and flash of the eighties. Mohawks and leathers to reflect the punk revolution. Neon colors and flashy geometric shapes to reflect the 80's synth and new wave. Not to mention the 80's american obsession with "becoming Japanese." The music in the movies, the look to the clubs, everything fit.

Even in the nineties, Cyberpunk still had counter cultures of industrial rock and grunge music to fall back on. Runners reflected that style through the late 2nd and 3rd edition art and feel of the adventures. We still had the lingering Japanese superiority complex and mohawk and leather feel because they still kind of translated into the industrial and grunge cultures. There was still a home for the things that really were cyberpunk.

But now, we have rap and hip hop culture in the mainstream and our counter culture is post-rock and emo trash. It doesn't really fit with anything that was cyberpunk-ish at all. But this is where I have the problem. There was a reason cyberpunk (Shadowrun more importantly) resembles the time period it came out of. Sci Fi inherently reflects when it was created. So, as our world evolves, the styles and fashions should reflect and almost parody what's going on IRL. I can imagine a bunch of "thug bad mutha fragga runners" stepping out of their lowered pimped ride sporting their bling. It's not a pretty thought, but it's one that according to how things have worked in the past, should be done now.

That old generation of runners that were chrome leather and green mohawks just don't understand what's with the kids these days and their orxploitation rap, their blinged gear and pimped vehicles. They just don't have the class of the previous running generation, probably have an entirely different etiquette, and probably don't stand for any of the same ideas or stand against any of the same ideas.

You can pimp your ride out... thanks Arsenal... <.<

I like the fact that you can play both sides of the coin in Shadowrun now. You can do pink mo-hawk or black trench coat, but in the end it's not hard to see the trends that SR has made... and yet at the same time there is tech that we have now that is better then the tech in the "future." Se la vi.

I have a character who was a 'runner in the 50's who is still alive and 'running in the 70's. He took an enforved vacation for most of the sixties. So now he basically had to start over and has to deal with current guttertrash who think some old guy is just going to bog them down. It is fun to play the dichotomy of his era and how it shaped him versus the current runner scene.

I'm glad you said that because I'm more the black trench coat style.

The 80's wasn't just the pink mohawks, think of Don Jonson in pastel suit jackets and t-shirts in Miami Vice.

And the frightening thing from 1950 to 2008, 2051 to 2070 there are still guys in hawiian shirts

Actually I wonder how much credit we should give the 2050 crowd for adapting. Technoshock was always supposed to be part of cyberpunk but in SR and other post cyberpunkish settings it's generally ignored. Assuming people roll with the developments.

So have they kept rolling into the 2070s? IS there still a "too old for the club" kinda feeling or do we figure the baby boomers or later generations have already paved the way for walkers in the mosh pit.

I think the VERY best have their edge but those who ae not up to that level have retired or died. I mean in a shoto out some guy with 2051 wired reflexes was the fastest best then, but then they come up against some kid with wired reflexes. The new tech will be faster so only the absolute best thinkers will be able to compensate. The straight muscle types will be long gone

The black trench coat style is a style that followed the Matrix and some of the other late 90s industrial and big beat techno influences in SciFi. Take a long look at the visual styles of sci-fi between the early 90's and sci-fi movies post Matrix. You'll see that there is a huge jump/change from gritty mechanical/industrial into sleek form fitting leather catsuit/long black trench coat solid matte color schemes. Personally, I think the Matrix ruined cyberpunk style.

I was lumping the Don Johnson overly pastel mid 80's Miami feel in with the new wave statement I made. They go hand in hand.

And yes, hawaiian shirts will never go out of style.

True, Matrix wasa real sea change for sci fi, but in the long coat you can look back to Harrison Ford in bladerunner with his rumpled trench coat, a link between Nemo and Sam Spade.

it's sort of a timeless look. Similarly the look in GitS/SAC, especially in 2nd gig and Solid State Society where the men's fashions as well have a rumbled but eternal look.

I agree that the Matrix affected the cyberpunk style, and arguably in a bad way. But Deckard did have a trenchoat, and you don't get much more 80s cyberpunk than that.

EDIT: Fixed, thanks to Snow Fox.

We played long campaigns, and the characters adapted to the effective SOTA - each new book brought changes to the gear list. I don't see many problem with samurais keeping up with the times, changing and updating their 'ware. What stops them will be death, but that is kind of countered with edge.

I'd argue that the Matrix was more of a goth/transhumanist movie than cyberpunk. Lots of leather fetishism and ridiculous (while still cool-looking) acrobatics. Traditionally (post)cyberpunk was more about survival and The Chase rather than war or superheroics.

yeah, but it was in the 1980's. hense the timelessness

Or will be pumping drugs.

Or have upgraded to the latest 'ware (and used the rest of the SR3-ish payouts for leonisation).

To me I view that there would be large generational gaps in the SR setting considering how quickly the technology has advanced in the game world, but look at our society today. Because of how quickly technology advances there is a style or fad change every ten years.

I think the interesting thing is that runners who have retired might have had to get back into the game because of the matrix crashes (where they lost everything.) I mean think about it. What runners carry all their money around on certified cred sticks? Everything goes to hell and they are back to square one trying to build back the life they once had. I also like the whole "Dammit! You mean I have to poke my head into the shadows again? I'm getting way to old for this sh*t!"

Now that's interesting, but i think it more likely that Miss Paranoid retired runner probably kept some assets in certified sticks meaning she still has while others crash and burn and suddnely she's back as a fixer or banker

In my experience everyone gets burned once. The runners who have survived and got back into the game after the first crash and survived probably didn't experience the effects of the second crash (as they would have no faith in the system.) However I'm sure the second crash took the next generation off guard.

Here is the big kicker though Snow Fox... if all the bank records went down how are certified cred sticks useful anymore when the data trail is completely wiped out? They would have had to tie it into physical assets, which will probably never get them as far as a bank account... although at the same time would a runner who has seen two major crashes right before their eyes ever use ? Maybe they might have juuuust enough to skate by on when having to buy gas or something, but it would kind of remind me of the bank job where the villain who stole all the gold has to slowly sell it off to continue his high lifestyle considering a paranoid runner would have no faith in the system probably after the first crash (kind of like how people after the great depression would squirrel away money, valuable items, and pieces of string.)

I was always thinking about an interesting setting where a 3rd crash happens and it effects all of the new tech the deckers who slung up their old gear are suddenly useful again as none of it touched the matrix after comlinks came out. Then there is this tech devision where some people did have comlinks not attached to the matrix but still open to the virus and the deckers who are using a system that is "so old" that the new AI strain that caused the crash isn't built to infect their decks.

First rule of dirty banking: always convert cash into gold.

I would not be at all surprised that a paranoid runner, after securing the necessary funds to survive, began investing in tangibles. Gold, most likely, given how extremely useful it is for magical operations.

I think it offers some really deep RP experiences. A human runner who is 50 has seen a lot. I like the idea of a washed out/ retired runner needing to make a comeback for one last time.

I definitely agree that anyone that runs the shadows and amasses any sort of wealth diversifies. Gold, Diamonds, Orichalcum whatever it doesn't matter so long as it's off the grid.

I'd get all Twilight 2000 and stockpile a portion of my wealth in shit that is worthless now but is worth ten times it's weight in Gold when the next Crash happens. Food, fuel, guns, ammo, lathes, titanium, nano-forges and feedstock.

Even in the couple of months of Crash2.0 someone with stockpiles of all the right stuff would have come out ten times richer than when they started.

also the people who got out and thought it was for good, are not gonig to bother upgrading cyberware. I mean really, you made neough in the shadows to retire in comfort, are you really going to bother with highly invasive surgery to replace wire reflexes with move by wire just so you've got a better golf game?

The brains that made Nick Charles still a sleuth after retiring will still work, but with the changes in tech level? look how many threads on this site love to point out how we now have tech they could only have dreamed of when this game came out. Sure guns tech , away from the military stuff, has remained virtually unchanged. Heck people still love their model 1911 Brownings now. The BAR was used from 1918 to vietnam, BUT cell phones. In 1989's 1st ed Shadowrun you paid 1,500 for a wrist phone with a flip up screen, ala dick tracy. That was seen as amazing tech in that day and age with real cell phones unreliable and looking like army radios. Now? My cell phone is the size of a star trek communicator and does so much more than just phone. and no I don't have an i-phone. but that change in tech and costs might be a serious hinderance to runners coming back.

We get in trouble and we can dial 911 from our own hip, 20 years ago, look for a pay phone or run into a business. How often do you even see pay phones any more?

When I do see them, they usually have the cord ripped off.

And well they should be. They hide IWB holsters very well, even for full sized guns.

If you've been around the block a few times you don't feel the need to play the games. Plus, you know how this is going to end, so why not just cut to the chase? It's why people in bars don't screw with the ex-seal CPO drinking coke.

They are the middle aged guys that NOBODY fucks with unless they plan to die, because they are not interested in proving how cool they are, or what spiffy gear they have, or how tough they are. They will act decisively while the punk is still posturing. And then they will walk out over the body.

"I'm sorry, the bank that issues that stick is no longer in business. Do you have an alternate payment method?"

Unless your game allows people to trivially forge sticks they are backed by a bank somewhere. And when the bank goes under or losses its systems your money is GONE.

As an aside, why the devil DON'T we have cell phone watches with flip screens? We have the technology for it.

There are. But it is about the stabilisation of technology that indicates what a cellphone should be. It should be visible when in use and hidden otherwise.

In addition there are issues with sound and receiving. There are issues with physics.

Plus, as Dr. Jonas Venture Jr. says, why put it on your wrist? You can use it if your hands are tied behind your back. Put it somewhere useful like your collar. In 2070 there are clothes that have fully integrated commlinks that would make use of the collar mic...

I thought they fixed that already?

I brought back an old character as an NPC. She was a mage who'd gone legit, and was working on cutting edge magical research at a university. She ended up being the groups fixer, sending them after a former colleague from the streets who'd abducted her daughter. It was quite nice to bring her back, older and more crotchety than ever!

I for one don't have the slightest problem with that "Cyberpunk was an Eighties cconcept, and the world of SR of 2050+ looked a lot like the Eighties" issue.

I mean: You see styles and fashion trends resurfaccing again and again everywhere. I think it quite feasible that in the 2050ies, people will look back at the 1980ies and say: "That looked kinda cool". So you have pink mohawks and shirts that hang down on one shoulder in 2050.

Now we have the year 2008, and SR has moved on to 2070, and - tadaa - the style and fashion has cchanged to something that looks hip and cool from our current point of view. Meaning: In 2015 (if SR is still around) people may say: "Do you remember 4th edition, when SR was set in 2070 and all the runners looked like gangstas out of 2008?".

The good thing is: The time gap between our here and now and SR is (and always will be) large enough that fashion and style can go full circle.

Who knows – in about 10–15 years, we may think that Matrix-style looks stupid, and that wearing oversized trousers that show your asscrack is plainly hilarious. Come to think of it: maybe we won't have to wait even that long ...

Actually the way the rules work, a guy with wired reflexes 2 from 2050 is just as fast as a guy from 2070. The difference is that the guy from 2050 spent over a quarter million on his for basic, while the other guy spent less than half that for Alpha Grade. Also, I think finding spare parts for the 2050 version in 2070 would be a bitch.

Heh, don't get me started on a nostalgia loop now Snowy. Oh yeah, the BEESTE is back baby, you'd better believe it.

Hmmm, as for Hawaiian shirts (and lets not forget Bermuda shorts or Mirrorshades too) - some things just... won't... die! But do a run in Oceania and well, time has a different quality there. (Heh, but then I'm bias about that part of the Sixth World. )

As for the age old argument of hardcopy cash over electronic credit, well, any runner worthy of the title should see that having a physical version of their material wealth is always going to be valuable. After all, that's what governments and financial institutions do with gold reserves now isn't it? Of course, with the advent of Orichalcum into the marketplace (yea, manifesting naturally even) is this the next investable wealth? Other options include investing in the stock market or megacorp shares, but like certified sticks these are only valuable as long as somebody else says they are, and all can be lost with a data crash. Better hope your PC's didn't invest everything in Fuchi/Novatech huh?

You then come across the more mundane, but no less important caches of "usable necessities" saved for a "rainy day". I know my PCs often bought additional bits and pieces for emergency stashes that they secreted in parts of the sprawl. Nothing like having a gymbag with a change of clothes (armoured of course), hardcopy currency, a spare Predator/HK-MP5 + ammo, some high calorie ration packs and a medkit. Of course, investing in survivalist stashes will be second nature to anyone who lived through Bug City - what worth is nuyen compared to regular meals and your own personal armoury?

OK, on to styles and how they change: True enough, the world goes on. Changes happen. What was hip for us is naff for the next generation. (Now, is it only me or does the fashion/style/trend turnaround period seem shorter these days.) However, as everything goes in cycles, so too will these fashions/styles/trends be revisited, albiet with modification due to current technology and attitudes. For example: the Cyberpunkness of early SR (1st Edition) was more hardware-bias. It was about the chunky metal guns, physical appearance of clothes, the hard-edge impact of ripping out your meat and replacing it with heavy metal chrome and electronics. It was, for lack of a better definition, more solid. Now, a few editions later on the Sixth World had evolved, as it should otherwise it becomes stale and stagnates. Cyberware led to Bioware which softened the impact, made it more harmonious, more organic, softer even. Then came Nanotech and Genetech which has reduced it to a baseline, or yet elevated it to an ethereal state. Its now gone so far beyond augmentation of a physical state that its practically transindental. In fact, I see the 4th Edition as equivalent to the essence of software compared to the 1st Edition's essence of hardware. Does that make any sense to you guys?

Finally, with regard to characters evolving throughout the timeline, my first ever SR PC was a decker called Mirage with a program carrier, based on the archetype out of the BBB. Boy did he feel out of the water when cranial decks emerged. If anything though, he would probably be the best at regonising the SOTA "upgrade or be obsolete" changes in the world around him, and thus come to terms with it. So I guess it's not unusual that Fastjack is still around and calling the shots, and he was "old school" back in 2050!

My favourite character from back then, however, was a burnt-out mage named Slyde. He was in his 30's in the 50's and had a wealth of experience and contacts that kept him in the game (along with some nice cyberware enhancements too). Now, he assumed the role of experienced team leader and tactician back then but I can easily foresee him progressing into an Obi-wan Kanobi style mentor for a new group of runners in the 70's. Yup, with the new magical tradition type rules, a Street Jedi would be it. As for my then-adolescent go-ganger Prowl, I worked out her history very thoroughly from corp-brat runaway and intended for her to become an established freelance bounty hunter. As a matter of fact, I think I'll devote some time to writing up her story. Its one of those characters that was all about the background, but one that I never actually got to play more than a few sessions with, and that just screams out to be told.

Ooo, just had another thought inspired by too much chocolate. Has anybody ever done a run where you get to play your old fogey 2050-era runners in SR4? Can you visualise the fun of a gang of geriatric retired runners being brought back into the scene? IE:

A samurai who ends up placing a conference call to Lone Star Homicide division instead of shooting his souped up newfangeled smartgun. [botch result]
The ex-wage mage who's got grouchy because drain taken its toll on her looks. [and because the elementals she summons keep reminding her abnout it]
The rigger whos got a bit confused in his later years and can't quite remember where he put the keys to the getaway car. [despite the fact that it now uses a wireless coding sequence]

We haven't moved to SR4 yet and it is very unlikely that we will. We are sticking with SR3 but I am almost certain that our GM is still moving the story towards SR4. For example, one of the party has a wireless deck and they are just becoming the in-thing. We still run in year 2064. That being said, we are still taking part in the uncovery of the Universal Brotherhood as well as hunting down artifacts of Dunkzahns Will. We have gone up against Deus Ex in Renraku Shutdown and have touched upon the events surrounding Harlequin and Erran.

So in short, although under canon, many of these events have already happened, our GM has made clear to us that our characters know only what we have found out in game about thins such as Insect Spirits and the events surrounding Dunklezahns death.

Our GM has been running shadowrun since 1st. I have been playing since 2nd. I know that he also reintegrates old PC's from his previous groups and NPC's from 1st and 2nd edition into our 3rd edition campaign.

It all makes for a very complex and interesting storyline which is normally quite difficult to solve if we dont have all the pieces to the puzzle (and we rarely EVER do

Big Bad Beeste, I think that is what SF was thinking about when she started this.

we have decided to do Ed 4 decking and spirits but all else Ed3.

This is a great topic and like a few posters have already said, it hasn't sunk in yet. The majority of the players in our gaming group have either just started playing SR or are coming back after a long absence. Ergo, we all pretty much have the 2050 or 2060 mind set while playing SR (aside from AR). But this thread is giving some food to think about as a GM. I started to play towards the tail end of SR II and during the dawn of SR III (So around 1998-2000.) and back then (:Waves fist at the thread:) our GM portrayed Shadowrun as a really dark, corrupt world. The novels which were being published around that time (Dragon Heart Saga, Steel Rain, Run Hard Die Fast.) exemplified that.

I actually did something like this in a game. The went in a bar in Barstow and there they saw an old Troll bartender tapping his accounts into a deck, the technomancer makes a smartass comment, and the troll replies, "look I've been using these damn things for along damn time, you keep your new-fangled commlinks it lets me run Quicken 2060 just fine."

This evening I encountered some old ZZ Top videos. Sharp Dressed Man, Gimme All your Lovin' and Legs.
I looked and I thought of this thread, the fashinos and all was 25 years out and they were all the rage back then. and the less said about what I was wearing hten, the better.