By the way, RedBrick calls for submissions from time to time. Maybe something could be done in this way for shadowrun too.

For exemple, a defined format for a Seattle Adventure Book (10 pages a scenario, best one selected and included into a 150 pages book).

Or a call to fill the download section with new vehicules for the game. Then compile and make them available.

IMO, that's the kind of thing that could add stuff to the game.


By the way, involving people is a good way to make them positive about a game (I'm unable express this rightly). I haven't yet read SR 4 (I just bought Sprawl site, from 1990's on internet...ahem) and when I first joined DSF, with all the flaming SR3 vs SR4, IE and Mary Sue, How the Timeline has been Screwed, How: oh it was better before during (SR3/SR2/SR1 depending on the poster), I was scared about what SR became. And after I saw a few posts from you, I had the confidence the game was heading in the right direction.

The people that voice up the most aren't maybe the most relevant about the average player. For exemple I consider myself as not beeing the average player. I have now bought 50 books printed + 2 pdf for Shadowrun alone. I am not representative.

In summary: Keep up the good work.

@Chrysalis: I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head. Shadowrun is made to fit a lot of different playstyles and it's up to the GM and players to make their own world out of the elements they are given in the various books. Sure there are guidelines, and a few hard facts that you can't ignore if you want to play canon, but you can still play the game in a lot of different ways without "getting it wrong".

It's not one of those clearly defined games where the playstyle is obvious and hard to miss ("You play classic comicbooks superheroes, you battle against communists", "You play action movie characters.", "You play brave adventurers out for fame and glory."). It's not Cyberpunk where the devs released a book to say "You're playing it wrong", or the old Vampire (haven't tried the new one) where the devs kept saying "that's how you're supposed to play it with intrigues and political stories, with a lot of emo-ing over your loss of humanity, and it saddens us to learn that you prefer to play over-the-top powerful characters (by the way, here are two new flashy level 10 powers)."

Shadowrun's game universe (a whole world, with a fully detailed backstory) mixed with a lack of focus (it's not focused on one city with one plot) makes it hard to turn it into a clearly-defined game. It can probably be done, but it'd mean missing on a lot of what the world has to offer and it's not he direction the devs have taken. Because of this, it's up to the GM (and his players) to choose the playstyle and make all the small details that'll bring their world to life.

Options are good. Flexibility is good. Being able to integrate numerous other backgrounds and settings into Shadowrun is very good.

That's the thing with Shadowrun, all the options you mention above are actually available and viable playstyles in this game. Some may be more believable than others depending on the exact backdrop you are using (for instance, the "SLA-type" game could be easily be set in Los Angeles or Tecnochtilán, in fact a couple of similar if not so nihilist/over-the-top shows already exist), the Cyberpunk approach which is probably closer to SR New York, Neo-Tokyo or London, and "your Cyberpunk" approach is closer to traditional Shadowrun as played out in Seattle or Hong Kong.

Why compartimentalize in one single playstyle when the Sixth World has so much potential and so much appeal to so many different people with different interests, playstyles, and viewpoints?

Note that there is a difficult balance to be struck between traditional cyberpunk and realistic cyberpunk where "the Man" is in power and has the immense resources of SR surveillance and security technology at his fingertips. It used to be cyberpunk was simple and clean cut, there were the haves and the have nots, and the have nots had the freedom to do what they wanted (including sticking it to the Man). Unfortunately reality has caught up and cheap and ubitquitous surveillance technology has brought fundamental problems to the traditional cyberpunk view of the world. Shadowrunning or even wearing your studs, pink mohawks makes you stand out from the corp monoculture masses of wageslaves and easy to track/eliminate. The freedom to stick it to the Man gets vastly eroded when you can be caught on traffic cameras, security cameras, RFID detected, logged and tracked ... being SINless will only help you until you are caught on file and logged by someone.

The way Shadowrun counters this is by seeding the system with cracks and counterweights (many of them addressed from a shadowrunner's point of view in Runner's Companion): data balkanization, breakdown of high level security cooperation, people who actively work to eliminate records, extraterritoriality and corporate neofeudalism, corruption, RFIDs elimination, etc. These were all issues that weren't even on the horizon in 1999 when SR and cyberpunk came out. To make for a playable environment, Shadowrun assumes a full-blown mono-culture totalitarian state is opposed by chaos theory of everyday reality and by forces that have no interest in allowing that level of social control in anyone's hands (including another megacorp's).

Shadowrun is not about one setting and one style (like say Cyberpunk's Night City). Shadowrun can be set anywhere in the Sixth World, and like the real world, these sprawls and environments run the gamut from empoverished third world dirtholes to big-brothereque first world capitals. You can play in the bustling downtown Manhattan business district or in Mogadishu-like Lagos. Heck, in some games people are comfortable globe trotting between both. And that's just in the "default" setting, you're free to fiddle with the "definitions" on your home game and tweak the individual settings to fit your tastes.

If you're looking at a better global picture, I strongly suggest trying the SR3 Shadows of series of books. The country information is 6 years out of date with regards to the current setting, but 85% of the content is valid regardless. They provide a pretty good global picture (minus Africa and South America) of society.


I'm really not sure what you mean by too much anarchy, but I have the sinking feeling you're overblowing the relevance of one book (Feral Cities) which is devoted to.... errrr... feral cities. Compare with Corporate Enclaves: Los Angeles may be in shambles while recovering from the Twins but downtown is becoming a Big Brother like nightmare and the system will spread to the rest of the sprawl over time, New York is a corporate ivory tower, Neo Tokyo is the traditional cyberpunk corp-ruled megalopolis, Tecnoctitlán is developing into a South American version of a corporate police state with will-intentioned dcitizens aiding the Azzie authorities, etc - similar situations abound in corporate domains around the globe. But going beyond that, the UK and London are in the grips of a police state, Tir na Nóg is a meta-fascist state, Russia was falling back on soviet era state control backed by nationalists this time, etc.


I'm not sure what you mean, total wordcounts for Lagos and Chicago were within 1500 words of each other (2 pages). The spotlight sprawls generally get about 50 pages a piece, though maps, artwork and layout restrictions may inflate that slightly. In fact, Chicago and Lagos writeups diverge by only 2 pages (52 to 54 pages respectively). The secondary sprawls covered in each book are intended to offer a glimpse at the variety and diversity that each "theme" offers: Istanbul plays differently from runner haven Seattle, corporate Europort plays differently from corporate Tokyo or Manhattan, Karavan plays differently from either Lagos or Chicago, etc.

See my post above, in the SR4 core location books we've covered some very distinct sprawls which fit different play styles:
- Runner Havens are places where the various powers of the Sixth World mix it up and hold each other in check without one coming out on top. These combine underworld/criminal, political, and corporate intrigues, sometimes even military and spy plots (Casablanca-style). Examples: Seattle, Hong Kong, Hamburg, Lisbon, Cape Town, Istanbul, Denver.
- Corporate Enclaves are places where the corporations rule and their monoculture dominates. Surveillance and security are much harsher and shadowrunners have to be on their toes. Big Brother society is just round the corner and stakes are higher. Examples: Neo-Tokyo, Manhattan island/New York, areas of Los Angeles, Tecnoctitlán, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur.
- Feral Cities are sprawls where anarchy and social darwinism are the rules. Mostly, no institutional power manages to hold sway because it lacks the infrastructure to enforce rules and social mores. To some degree people live by their wits and by the strength of arms. Examples: Lagos, Chicago, GeMiTo, Karavan, Sarajevo.

All these and more are possible in Shadowrun. Sprawls are as diverse as they are in the real world - you wouldn't expect Los Angeles and Bangkok to feel or play the same if you were playing a contemporary game, why would they be the saem in the future. Pick the one (or ones) that feel right for your play style and set your game there. You can even globe-trot between similar environments.


Given the usual timeframe for book development indexes, beyond the TOC, are very hard to execute and implement particularly for fluff material. We will be making an effort to index rule books in the future, but fluff books are unlikely.

The diversity is the thing I love about Shadowrun:

Aliens / 28 Days Later? Bug City & Runner's Companion.
Pirates of the Caribbean? Cyberpirates.
Law & Order and it's various spin-offs? Lone Star & Corporate Security Download.
The Pelican Brief? Shadowbeat.
Hellboy / Witch Hunter Robin? Dragons of the Sixth World (for the Dunkelzahn Foundation, who I would use).
Apocalypse Now? Fields of Fire (did they do an update to this?)

All of these are pre-4e (and two are pre-3e!) but they're all relatively easy to find as PDFs online. What I'm saying is, you don't have to just put your runners in different cities in order to make Shadowrun what you want. It's hella malleable and does what you want it to do without any real work.

Shadowrun is all about giving you the big picture of the world and then giving you multiple areas of focus. High fantasy, low fantasy, pink mohawk, black trenchcoat etc...there's no need to vastly rewrite the system or the setting. This enables discussion here on the official boards, because we're not working from different templates.

Will the Ancients metaplot you're putting out this year cover the Atlantean Foundation or other, similar organizations Synner? We need more information in order to do Tomb Raider!

I think Synner points out the advantage of Shadowrun over CP2020 or SLA or Obsidan or "your dystopian future here". The places in the world are very different feeling even between books. The vibe from the original Seattle source book, new Seattle, and runners haven Seattle section are all a bit different. If I want to run my game in a place where its either acid raid or red smog all the time Seattle may not be the location for me anymore (I said may not, the pollution has been played down from edition to edition but its still there and who knows what the new book will bring) but there is still LA, Chicago and a whole world out there for me to use.

Well, go to Sixth World Wiki and start contributing...

Shhh, don't start talking crazy talk or anything.

You and your crazy talk.

The true horror, indeed.

I'd just like to clarify a point here. Microsoft does not insist on their employees doing anything with guns. Rather, guns are prohibited on Microsoft property, such as any microsoft building or the associated campus land between them if you're on the main campus. Microsoft has no policies about commuting, and legally can't do shit about it anyway even if they did, as Washington is a shall-issue state when it comes to conceal carry permits.

It should also be noted that microsoft is FAR from the only company that prohibits firearms on their property. Every company I've worked for has had that policy, because it drives worker insurance through the roof in California and Washington.

MS is neither facist nor a nanny state, except in that most hyperbolic way that any corporation is.

The fact that such a ban has to be outspoken by a company shows the difference between the US and Europe (or at least Germany) very much. Not wanting to derail this thread, just thinking...

why's that any difference?
if you can get a concealed carry permit over here, the corp can still say that weapons are forbidden on the corporate premises . .
and if you have the permit and there are no such rules in a corporation, you can wander around with your pew pew just fine . .

You think that the cutlture regarding guns is the same in Germany and the US?

Please, no gun debate.

nah, the US of A is full of GunNuts where everyone has the RIGHT to a Gun . .
but the laws are more or less the same i think . . if you have the concealed carry permit over there, it's in the territorry of the corporation you work for to issue such restrictions.
if you have a concealed carry permit over here in germany, it's again only the corporation that can issue such a restriction, as you're not breaking any laws.
For Example Bodyguards could take a gun whereever they so chose, if the place they intend to go does not have a standing rule(house rule actually) that states:"Thou shalt not carry your piece in here!" and actually looks with weapon detectors and takes these weapons away and stores them for you to get back when you leave . .

ok, no gun debate. ^^

Very few places that prohibit guns actually do anything to enforce this. Concealed means Concealed.

SLA Industries and Corporation going strong [as inspiration, mostly].

I have been thinking on how to answer this post for a while, but I have been seriously strapped for time. Stressed about time and lack of money and a fear of getting into serious debt.


Anyways, I learned how to do indexes ages ago as I picked up a book on it. It's highly process intensive and demands having the book finished. I am sure that there are modern programs which do it better than a ten card system I learned. I really doubt it would be of use in anything except the hardback books. However, I do like the compiled information in the back of Augmentation and Arsenal. I especially like that there is page references.

Anyways it's late and I have to sort some stuff out, and Runciman is calling for me from the side of the bed.

I'll echo this as well. I did some fun volunteer stuff before and I was surprised when I prompted for comments that I'd get almost nothing, which led me to suspect either I had written too much, or there was nothing there to complain about. I think that's part of why I got into SR3R, because people were actually being constructive. It would be nice if I could get input from stuff I create (even if that input is 'this won't work because of X') and a place to put it for easy sharing, like the old dumpshock web site. It would definitely encourage me to produce more.