I'm thinking of a campaing I'd like to run that has a grittier feel, like the 1st and 2nd edition days of old. But the players I run with usually like the higher power settings. Is there a way I can start with a normal power level, and introduce a grittier world without frustrating them too much?

I'd like to have character creation at a normal power level too, but I doubt the players have the patience to go through BeCKs. What are the usual limits imposed, no 1m nuyen, no high attributes, no high skills? I was thinking of limiting character creation to the base book only, no outside sources.

Grittier isn't just about what the players are, though it helps. Show them the cold heart of the streets. See an innocent beg for mercy from a gang-member and then get his head blown off. Put them through hardships. Ghouls always help things seem grittier. Perhaps the runners encounter a mishapen bioware experiment that begs to be killed to be put out of its mercy. Etc. etc.

Can you have "gritty" without "depressing?" I've introduced emotion-wrenching situations before, but they didn't have the effect that I wanted. A slow, gradual introduction of the cold heart of the street is what I'm looking for. Maybe I won't wait until run 9 for the Johnson to screw them over and leave them with nothing more than a half can of synthol and an empty pack of smokes to survive on.

It's all about the attitude of the game, not the mechanics, you want grittier, use descriptions that are diretier, and grittier... screw them more often , or allow for random violence...

A good set of descriptives (I use a notepad file full of words to help me describe things) can greatly affect the mood of the game.

Not gritty Ex:
You arrive at the Stuffer shack on your Bike and see the rough Gangers about to bust the place up for it's weekly protection money

Gritty Ex:
You arrive at the run-down and dirty Stuffer shack on your Bike and see the Gang "Red-Heralds of Death" about to burn the place down for not paying this weeks blood money.

-Fahr

Read cyberpunk books.

Yea. It is all about atmospheric description and making that atmosphere affect them.

I am not very good at doing it either. Not that I can't do it when I think of it, but I usually forget to do it at all. Maybe stick a big note right in front of yourself "GRIT".

Look up some pictures of a factory shanty town in northern mexico, mogadishu, kosovo, a market in bangledesh, a checkpoint in Israel. That is something like what the barrens are like. Reference that stuff. Make it tough to get around. Going into or out of the barrens isn't something to be done four times a day. They should feel like they are going into another country. Going deep inside can get to be something of an expidition for those from outside and vice versa.

Walk around a federal office building... though you'll need a reason to go in nowdays (think back if you ever got a passport). Notice how it drips security. How everyone looks sort of the same inside (dress codes, shudder). How the place is kind of soul less. I work right next to them and there are always multiple security guards patrolling the outside front and back, and more inside. They have put up concrete car bomb barriers all around the thing. Every corp building in shadowrun is like that.

If you want to keep power levels down, don't do it by limiting character creation in a static way, just limit die pools. If you limit the PCs' starting skills to 4, they can still make an Adept who'll roll 16+ dice for any attack. Keep the die pools down to around 10-12 dice for any given thing and you won't have too many problems. Speed isn't half the problem that it used to be and every archetype can access some sort of speed enhancement, so I wouldn't even worry about it.

Strictly enforce availability and street index, both during and after chargen. If players want to negotiate (someone usually does), then let them. Just let them know in advance that they're dealing with professional merchants, not just Shadowrunners with a shopping hobby. After they pay above street index a few times, they'll get the hint and start taking normal rates.

If you want things darker and grittier, it all begins with the NPCs. Give the NPCs flaws (not just in the game sense, but negative character traits) and you'll drag the game into a darker, nastier place instantly. If the PCs go to a street doc, make it a street doc, not a SOTA clinic staffed with the best of the best. When I think "street doc", I think about a guy with a case of the shakes and a cigarette hanging out of his badly-stained teeth; the kind of guy who's pulled a few less-than-vital organs while his patients were under and who does the occasional bait-and-switch with second-hand 'ware to keep his BTL habit going. Of course, he'd never do that to the PCs... right? Stop allowing the Armani-dressed gun dealers in spotless mansions with limitless access to everything the PCs want. Instead, the PCs have to get into the Barrens to buy whatever's available out of the back of a van. They may have to bid for it against others looking to enhance their own arsenals and then they've got to get the items out of the Barrens afterward.

Contacts are no more than just that - they aren't lifelong friends or even friendly. They're people that your character knows who can maybe get a thing done. They sure as hell won't do it for free and they won't hang themselves out to dry for you, either. Look at the character and look at the contact. Now ask yourself "how would a contact at this level view the character?". Is the character "too good" to deal with the contact or vice versa? Would the NPC put forth their best effort for the PC? Race, criminal/corporate ties, and other factors can also help determine how contacts will react to PCs ("What do you think you're doing? You brought one of them in here? You friends with him or something? I think you need to go and take your 'friend' with you before I forget we've done business before...").

The people your PCs are dealing with (not to mention the PCs themselves) will be criminals of one sort or another. They have something wrong with them that makes them unsuitable for a normal life. Well-meaning utopians are few and far between, so you're going to be looking at people with mental or social problems. Try to figure out what made the NPC choose the life they did and bring that across to the players.

Finally, don't give the players easy choices. "Black Hats v. White Hats" makes for good heroic gameplay, but it doesn't do anything to make a game dark or gritty. Consequences exist for every action to some degree or another, you just need to express those consequences. Would the players do some organlegging to get some new cyber for their street samurai? Would the players help a toxic shaman or blood mage for help with some new spells? Would the players kill someone who is doing good work in a community to climb the criminal/corporate ladder? Would the players turn over one of their contacts as a favor to another? A PC's Lone Star contact shows up to deal with a problem the PC caused, does he kill/harm the contact or allow his team members to harm/kill the contact or does he leave a run unfulfilled? What does the contact do and how does the PC react to that? Give the PCs a heaping helping of moral dilemmas and see how they react.

First, I want to say "Damn good ideas" to everyone before me. In reference to Backgammon's one liner... Pick up "Mirrorshades," if you can get a hold of it. I think the proper title is Mirrorshades: A cyberpunk Anthology.

It's got some great short stories in it, like Johnny Mnemonic, and Till Human voices wake us. It has a little fantasy in it, like Petra, but they are good stories none the less. You may also want to pick up a movie called Strange Days. I love it. Great for a grittier future, and for the simsense and BTL community. Snuff films in Sim.

Second, you want a gritty atmosphere. Simple to define gritty, no?

Main Entry: grit·ty
Pronunciation: 'gri-tE
Function: adjective
Inflected Form(s): grit·ti·er; -est
Date: 1598
1 : containing or resembling grit
2 : courageously persistent : PLUCKY
3 : having strong qualities of tough uncompromising realism

Here, we so want to focus on the Bold.
Tough, Uncompromising, realism.

Can be a hard act. So lets look at things that help.
First. Introduce Poverty. I find it sometimes helps if the players start that way, or find themselves that way, but in truth poverty is one of the great equalizers in creating a gritty atmosphere. Images thrown in passing can help this. Sometimes you might want to practice an even tone of voice when describing. Now, I'm not saying go monotonal... Just make it sound casual.

"So, you guys are set to meet with SlimEddy over at corner of Third and Westmeier, just inside the Barrens. TJ, you said you and Blackmoor are heading by way of your bike? And Julia, you're driving your new Sedan? Okay. The trip goes by fairly quickly. There was an accident that slowed you down on 18th, but not enough that you'll be late. As you roll up to the corner, you see a man digging in a trashcan and pulling out a half eaten sandwich. He gives an envious look at the sedan... and there across the street, SlimEddy comes around the corner, his eyes shifting, looking like he's ready to bolt."

You can toss in enough of this over time, that people will feel it in their bones. It helps if you can counter this with something else. A counterpoint is always good. Something like a meet in a place where they are suddenly overdressed... or underdressed.

It's a lot of fun when runners end up showing at a Posh new restraunt in clothes that have been worn for three days. Or when a contact calls them from their night at the theatre, where they just had a meet in the balcony, to a slum warehouse, where people look like they'll about fall over from starvation. And here is our Player, looking like he's worth a Hundred Thou.

And if they decide to help... Toss a few Yen to the locals to make themselves feel better, make sure that they can see people fight over credsticks, or perhaps there are just too many to help. Poverty can be a disease in a game and in real life. In both cases, it can even be terminal. Let them feel it, even if they do not suffer from it. Like they say about Cancer. If no one you know has died from it, someone you know knows somebody who has.

That's enough on poverty, though there are a thousand more tricks. Next, might want to move into Bigotry. This isn't just about racism and the Policlubs, though it damn well includes it. It's about Bigots, plain and simple. We live in a wold that has some damned closed minded individuals. And most of us have some intolerance towards something. Some of us may not like a race, a sex, a religion, a creed, or people we think are stupid.

Push that into the game if you players can be comfortable with it. Hell, even if they are uncomfortable, you can still do it, as long as it does not go to offensive. Making a player a little uncomfortable is okay. Especially if you talk with them first, and let them know. Explaining that you might use these reactions to pull them into a game will often have people lining up to play in such situations.

Make the contact only willing to speak with a female(especially if there are none in the group. LOL saw one where they had to hire another NPC runner for the team just to get info), or an Ork. Maybe a person hates mages. Or hates the color green. Maybe you get a contact who calls in to offer some info, and when he is offered money for it, he gets offended. Maybe he just wanted to do a good deed, and feels like he is about to be bought.

We are human, and extreme, and sometimes irrational reactions take place, and sometimes those are linked to what we are intollerant of. Use it. Let it guide you. Be at one with the Fo...ahh fsck it.

Anyway, those are just some minor ideas.

Go for atmosphere and make a cheat sheet of descriptives -- "The bleak morning rain hammers your face relentlessly"

"The stench of smoke and smog and less pleasent aromas assault your nostrils; the squish of dead rodents under your boot heel as shadows skitter in the twilight."

Although you may want to make yours less cliched than mine.

-Siege

There's a reason it's cliche though. It's damn good. It's kind of hard, not impossible, to make a gritty run happen on a bright, clear, sunny day on several levels. There's the fact that it hampers the principle of Shadowruns, it makes things more noticeable, etc. There's also the fact that the corps are supposed to pollute the planet nearly to hell and back including acid rain and everything. And pllution isn't just things like smoke, I imagine there's a whole new classification of pollution in 2063, bodies.

Look at your favorite gritty movie or book and dissect it -- what makes it gritty to you?

"Blade Runner" and "Payback" are two great films for that kind of analysis.

-Siege

My players play BodyLotto, the lottery of 2058. Every day the Seattle Times publishes the number of corpses found the night before in each of Seattle's districts, and the more districts you match, the more you win! It's a bit tongue in cheek but I think it really exemplifies the lack of value that human life holds in the Shadowrun world...and on the rare occasion that they win, it's a great time.

Make most NPCs they meet driven by money and money only. Really unwilling to help, with a "i only look out fer meself" type attitude. I find that it can help.

I knew I was forgetting someting, I just couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was. And there it is, that majestic word "indifference." Although it isn't everything as was mentioned in some other topic I can't remember the name of, the Japanese even today have this indifference but we don't really look at them as gritty. I don't, at least.

Yes, but Japan tends to be relatively outwardly clean and safe. Keep the indifference, scrap the appearance of safety and cleanliness, and you've got your grit.

~J

All of the above are good ideas, most of which address how the GM describes the environment. I've got a couple ideas that are related to the game mechanics.

1) Character death happens and is to be feared. I think of this as part of a "gritty" game. If the players have ever seen you 'go easy' on them, just to avoid killing them off, you may have to introduce this concept gradually. Perhaps run an NPC as a team member and cause his death, or arrange with the next person who runs a new character for you to kill off that character in a day or two. Kill off a contact too, when it is appropriate.

2) If you've been rolling dice behind a GM screen, take the screen away. Tell them that a lucky shot by an opponent can destroy the best plan or the best character and you're going to let the dice land where they may. Have them see an NPC use Karma pool to kill them, or even burn karma for an extra success. They hate that. But the realism will increase their overall enjoyment.

3) Introduce the concept that not all runs presented by Mr. Johnsons are to be taken. Some runs are over their heads, some risk too much exposure, some don't pay enough. They'll never know if they've inadvertently accepted a run that is too tough for them.

If you want grit, try taking away some of the Edges in SRcomp or do away with them altogether. And forbid them from buying Level 2 Contacts. All the every man for himself grit comes smack into the unyielding PC wall called Connected or Buddy because they paid good or BP for those Edges and no way are they going to let you screw them over. One thing I've learnt is putting your PCs' contacts in the shitter is a good way of getting rid of players. Now that's RL grit.

One day, long ago, a question of style got raised on ShadowRN regarding the Seattle Barrens. A lot of replies errupted, a few of which I thought were worth mentioning here. It seemed appropriate: Click here.

Try to avoid descriptions like: The happy puppy brings you his squeaky toy.

I find puppies always take the edge off "gritty"

Sunday.

Yeah. It's much better if it goes something like: You see a mangy, three-legged mutt try to hobble to a discarded soy-burger on the side-walk, but some suit walks into it, kicking it to the roadside where a black, streched sedan parks right on it with a crunching sound. The mirrored rear window of the shiny new lexus opens to reveal the face of Mr Johnson.

Or whatever. I'm a sucky GM in this respect, and my players never pay any attention to the flavor stuff (which makes it too easy for me to sneak extremely important stuff right past them sometimes) so I hardly ever make the effort.

For books, I'd recommend The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick, and indeed anything by Michael Swanwick, though the grit varies a tad.
I'd thought I'd already posted that, but I can't find it, so if this is duplicate advice ignore one iteration.

~J

Wow, great suggestions everybody, this will be one heck of a descriptions list when I write it up.

Speaking of descriptions, I once saw a random location generator (complete with descriptions for ground, walls, knick-knacks, and others) for Shadowrun, and I think it had some grittyness in it. Does anyone know where I can find it, or what its name is?

Thanks again, I've been so tired of the brighter, comic-book, action-focused image that I'm seeing in the latest Shadowrun products, but that's for a different discussion.

I've never seen a random location generator for Shadowrun... and if I did, I still probably wouldn't use it. I tend to get a rough idea of what a neighborhood has in a few seconds that it takes me to describe it.

If you need some kind of help, I suggest you make lists of descriptives, like others have recomended. Then, maybe split those into different types of moods you wish to convey.

Then determine what will be in what kind of areas? A place might be all houses... but if it's apartment complexes, there might be a stuffer shack or two.. a run down gas station...
or you might be in a higher security area, where things look dull, but everywhere has a biz running.

For example..

Moods Cheat Sheet:

Depressing - gloomy, rain slicked, dingy, filthy, soaked, shadowy
Angry- torn, ripped, violent colors, heavy noise
Lonely - dark, quiet, stark, bland, grey colors or sterility

Then combine it with a neighborhood cheet sheet if you want. After a while it can become second nature.

For example
Barrens- Derelict buildings. Abandoned gas station. Stuffershack


Then you can end up just picking what feels right:

"Derelict buildings, their filthy sides rising up to wall you in on the floor of a black tarmac canyon, slick with rain and filth, pass by as you speed down towards the meet. The smell of sewage turns in your nostrils as the newest rain does little more than stir up the stench, rather than wash it away..."

Just an example. Again, practice in front of a mirror, or better yet with a tape recorder. Try to do prose like this at random, record it, play it back. Find out what sounds good and what doesn't. Then script some things that look good on paper and do the same. Alternate between them, and soon you'll find it flows.

Now, don't get caught up with painting atmosphere to the extent your players start nodding off while you describe the local Stuffer shack.

-Siege

LOL very true. And I've done it before. It takes balance.

Man, was I red when I looked over to find one of my players about to go to sleep from flavor text. Said it was the heat, and then he remembered I keep my house at 65. LOL.

It's cool. We all go overboard some times. You'll find the right balance.

So, I guess, remember that the flavour text has to be engaging and concise, otherwise your game will turn into a Tolkien novel.

And it'll take 12hours to read the campaign only IC.

One of the best ways to give your players flavor text is to insert it into essential information. You can tell the players what they need to know while giving good description. The only problem is that it really does require balance.

Another great source of dark, gritty language is the video game Max Payne.

Flavor text is good, but remember to break it up occasionally. If you stay in gritty mode 100% of the time, the players will begin to tune it out. Break it up with an occasional happy or lighthearted moment, to make the gritty stuff stand out in stark relief instead of fading into a dull background.

Be very cautious with limiting power levels and other types of GM fiat. Players don't like to be railroaded or manipulated. Instead, do what someone else suggested and let the dice fall where they may. Have logical consequences for player actions. Let them feel like they can succeed, but you won't cut them any breaks. Look through the rules and start using the full arsenal of nasty stuff in there. Start checking for cyberware stress and magic loss. Use street index and contact upkeep costs. Use racial biases. Have the Johnson and their contacts screw with them, not enough to count as a betrayal, but enough for them to realize that their lawless existence depends on the people who can get them gear and jobs.


The biggest problem with a gritty atmosphere is that it can discourage roleplaying sometimes. If the PCs are in a world with no friends, no noble causes, and nothing to live or die for but the almighty nuyen, then you might wind up with an amoral crew who will firebomb orphanages ("The last three orphans we ran into picked the face's pocket of the datachip we had just retrieved, led us into an ambush by a gang, and turned out to be an otaku who got us evicted from our own safehouse, respectively. Damn right we firebomb the orphanage. Orphans are pure evil.").

The trick with a gritty atmosphere is not overdoing it - making the PCs still care about the world that their characters live in. Some players enjoy to have their characters angsting and suffering. But others will be likelier to become more powergaming in their outlook, because only by being strong and brutal can they enjoy any level of what they define as "success". If a player was originally going to give the character the dependent flaw, and had an ailing father that presented all kinds of roleplaying opportunities, but decides "Naw. He'd just get kidnapped the first session, then he'd get killed off and I'd have to buy off the flaw." - then your gritty style has created a game world where the PCs are interchangeable callous thugs. So ask yourself the important question - do your PCs enjoy playing struggling, flawed people? If they don't, then the PCs might become more one-dimensional.

I hate to be the persistent naysayer, but be careful how many hooks you plant for your characters.

An old GM insisted on planting so many hooks so he could justify trying to drag us through Hell on Earth and back.

We're in a middle of a Wasteland, escorting a pack of gypsies who are dying left, right and sideways. I manage to scrounge a lot of crossbows -- I figure they're not accurate or great, but volumes of crossbow fire will either hit something or discourage raiders. Only to be told, "It goes against their cultural values."

Sorry, minor rant.

-Siege

I have been following this thread since it's inception but I am thus far at a loss to formulate a reply. I'm not sure why. I do think that some people on this thread are WAY off of what "gritty" really is.

My games are gritty. Gritty is not necessarily depressing, nor is it cyberpunk, nor is it apathetic. Some people are getting mood confused with atmosphere and genre. They are related but not directly so. Moreso if you want "Dark and Gritty" and not just gritty. Gritty also does not have to to with the powerlevel of the game, but instead the way it is presented... My darkest and most gritty game ever was 300-380 karma before it ended... amusingly enough the game ended *because* of the gritty, the team kind of swallowed itself and imploded.

I could run a gritty game in Disneyworld if I had to, tons of smilich children, families and all, in borad daylight.

Also keep in mind not all players WANT a gritty game, they do not want consequences for their actions, they do not want the game to function like a subset of reality. There are those that want the game to work like a comic book or 80's action movie. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's likely they will not enjoy a game that's as firmly planted as one in which you would neeed to enforce the necessary things to make it really gritty.

My thought process has not settled on one line of thought enough to gove a good description of how to accomplish this yet. I'll post again as soon as I have more of a solid idea for a post. My problem is I do not consciously think "gritty" I just do it.

If ye' want gritty architecture, try looking at buildings like Boston's City Hall.
Seriously. The entire architectural style is called neo-brutalist.

~J

Someone mentioned earlier in this thread that if you want an example of gritty, play the game Max Payne or it's sequel. here's some of my favorite quotes. All delivered totally deadpan, not in a joking fashion.:

------From the original Max Payne:

Max Payne: He was trying to buy more sand for his hour glass. I wasn't selling any.

Max Payne: [Narrating] There was no glory in this.. I hadn't asked for this grap.. Trouble had come to me, in big dark swarms.. The good and the Just, were like gold dust in this city. I had no illusions.. I was not one of them, I was no hero... Just me and the gun, and the crook... My options decreased to a singular course

Vinnie Gognitti: Police brutality!
Max Payne: I rate pretty high on that.

Frankie Niagara: Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Frankie "the Bat" Niagara.
Max Payne: "Niagara," as in you cry a lot?
Max Payne (voiceover): He had a baseball bat and I was tied to a chair. Pissing him off was the smart thing to do.

Vinnie Gognitti: You--you can't just kill me in cold blood!
Max Payne: You just keep telling yourself that.

Max Payne: [narrating] Collecting evidence had gotten old a few hundred bullets back.

Max Payne: And now I was going to kill her- the queen of the underworld who had tried to lift herself a bit closer to heaven with her drug money. No begging, no bribes, she knew better - honor among killers, "We who are about to die." We both know how this would end: in pain and suffering.

------From the sequal Max Payne 2: A Film Noir Love Story:

Max Payne: [narrating] Vlad was right. There are no choices. Nothing but a straight line. The illusion comes afterwards, when you ask 'Why me?' and 'What if?'. When you look back and see the branches, like a pruned bonsai tree, or forked lightning. If you had done something differently, it wouldn't be you, it would be someone else looking back, asking a different set of questions.

.
.
.
Okay, I gotta go replay both games now

Re federal office building:

The one I walk past isn't just any office building, it is the one with the passport office, state department branch, immigration, and seattle fbi office I think. So it is probably on the heavy security side. I happened to walk around three sides of it on the day I wrote that post and I saw three security guards outside (1 at front entrance, 1 at loading dock, 1 circling the building) and two inside manning the metal detectors all armed.

I expect they have some sort of official dress code, but even if they do not everyone who works there is wearing the same thing.

You are definately right about the slightly run down feeling. Everything is somewhat older and cheaper looking than in a corporate building.

Car bomb barriers come in two types. There are the big concrete planters full of dirt and plants. Those are the nice one. Then there are the regular concrete barriers used to divide traffic, or temporarily wall off places for cars. The ones with a cross section something like an upside down 'Y'. They already had some planters around this building but they were too widely spaced, so between them they set up the concrete barriers (jersey barriers?). Those have been there since the oklahoma city bombing (whats that five years?, ok 8 says CNN). They really ought to replace them with the planter type, these are very ugly.

Finally I think Canada is quite a bit different. Lower crime rates, less terrorism paranoia, etc.


Anyhow that was the closest I thought people might have had experience with.

I also took a couple walks at 1am during the WTO protests in downtown seattle. That was quite something: empty streets, helicopters overhead with searchlights, tired cops in riot gear, secret service with submachine guns (when the president was in town), a windy night with junk blowing around and everyone walking hunched over to keep out the chill.

Well the government building I work in I would have a lot of sympathy for anyone that tried to shoot their way in... of Course I work in the Clark County Detention Center (The Las Vegas Jail.)

Our computer systems are up to date (I put them in myself!), our security is very, very good.

US Federal security has been under fire (forgive the puns) ever since 9/11 with reporters trying to sneak weapons in to do "Exposés" on gaps in security.

Not having had reason to wander through a Federal building, I don't know if it's improved particularly, but some buildings have higher ratings than others.

Wandering through the CIA or FBI headquarters would probably garner a far different reaction from wandering through the Atlanta Federal Building.

-Siege

"Vinnie Gognitti: You--you can't just kill me in cold blood!
Max Payne: You just keep telling yourself that. "

that one is, i think, slightly off, i remember it as

Vinnie: You, you can't just hurt me in cold blood!
Max: Uh-huh, you just keep telling yourself that

then again, it was awhile since i last played the game....

oh well......

I really wish that was true -- just like I desperately want to believe Area 51 is a decoy from the real repository of alien artifacts.

I _still_ can't believe some moron in the FBI didn't redflag a flight instructor's concern about someone who "only wanted to know how to take off, not land."

If idiocy and incompetence were treasonous...

I mean, bloody hell -- wanting to know only how to land a plane is one thing. Always be prepared and all that. But c'mon...only wanting to take off?

Sorry, will stop ranting now.

-Siege

You know, I'm surprised I haven't heard anyone mention Tamanous for use in a "gritty" campaign. For those of you who don't know, Tamanous is a criminal organization who specializes in organlegging (in fact, it seems that that is all they do).

These guys are truly sick. They work with the heads of brothels, taking away any bodies they might have accumulated through "rough" treatment by customers. Tamanous has even taken organs from random people on the street, taking some poor slot 's organs. It's not fatal, so the cops give it less priority. Worst of all, they keep young women imprisoned, artificially (perhaps naturally in some even sicker cases) impregnate them, then abort the fetus at about 3-4 months, "harvesting" the valuable tissue (for transplants and such). Oh, and they employ ghouls to guard their facilities.

All this is from the Underworld Source book. It's a little out of date, but I'm sure Tamanous is still around. THe UW book as a whole is great for running the various syndicates realistically, and I can't think of anything much grittier.

<Wheezers voice on, shake crutch>
Them youngsters today are no longer watching da good movies
<End voice, store crutch>

Borrow "Soylent Green" and watch it a few times. Ignore the main ingredient of Soylent Green but rather look at:

The ordinary people using staircases as a sleeping place so regularly, that they "own" their place and guard it!

Feeding of the masses with cheap synthetics and massiv police action when a food riot breaks out

Lack of books (no place to grow trees) and heavily rationed water even for the working (Heston's a detective)

Open Corruption as a necessity to survive even in the police. Job loss as the biggest possible thread ("What's my share")

General overcrowding (2 persons at 20m2 including the shower/kitchen)

Power and threats as a way of live (What Heston does to the "furniture" is basically a rape)

And than the bigwigs and their lackeys

People called "furniture" (basically slavery) to be rented with the appartment

Natural food

Luxury



As a second source treat yourself to some of Pournelles "CoDominion" Stuff. The best sources are "Revolt on Warworld" and "The Prince of Mercenaries". Not the action/combat parts (which are great - as always) but rather the description of life on earth:

Distinction between haves (taxpayers) and have nots (the majority)

Cheap booth/drugs and synthifood for the masses

Regular sweeps by the SA-Type thugs of the Bureau of Relocations gathering up people to be deported.

Heavy security in the taxpayer enclaves. And very little privacy since everyone is out to make a career on your back!

A totally corrupt US Government (The current does not! even come close) using all means to enrich itself (i.e. Claiming the need to "Amerikanise" everybody and therefor having to eliminate the reservations when in reality they just want to sell the land)


As a third read (don't !!! watch) "A candle in the dark" (WW II espionage) Ignore the first chapters playing in the US and read the part where the heroine poses as a working woman in germany 1943/44, take in the disparity between the Nazis and the ordinary people. Other stuff (like the later works of Buchheim i.e. The Fortress) are also good reads


Add a healthy does of Kommisariat for state security/Reichssicherheits-Hauptamt/Bureaux of Home Security stuff and technologies and finish of with the black clad, mirror-visored, jack-booted security goons and the ever-sniveling blockwart/mailman/local "patriot"

Always show the players the difference between the haves and the have nots. Give them short stints in the world of the rich (long showers, real food, luxury cars) and then throw them back in the world of brownouts, water rationing and synthfood. Show them the toys of the rich (that rich teenager using the Fairlight Excalibur to play Donkey Kong 2060) and then take them back to their TRASH-80 equivalent cyberdeck that's still the best they can get and their prized possession.

High skills are okay since they need them to make up for their outdated equipment. Make them take B/R since most of the time they are the only ones who'll even try to repair the stuff.



Michael

The U.S. government does not have a real dress code, but as it happens an informal one has developed over the years. But it's not surprising to expect that the federal government would expect a certain level of business eqv. attire from its employees because they're professionals, and should be expected to dress like it.

I'd discuss security, specifically from my own experience pre and post-9/11, but ... Generally, the security was based on a perception of infallibility, and not the actuality of it. In all fairness to SR, that's what I would expect from 95% of any institutional security. They can, generally, be expected to deal with normal security issues. However, anything more than that... a clusterfuck, reinforcements, and containment. I think that, honestly, most security in SR is perception-based for most corp installations where if you generally look like you belong, you're okay, which has generally been my experience in many places you'd expect to be more secure.

Ya know, I don't know how to reply to that.

While I have a reasonably good understanding of modern law enforcement theory, the degree of stupidity behind this particular blunder just amazes me.

-Siege