Corporate enclaves was good, but lacked the essential meat that made it drool worthy. You don't get those strange little cultural tidbits you did in Feral Cities. Japan didn't have much of the insane wackiness, and while it felt like they were trying to convey corporate insanity and old america in LA, it didn't really jump out.

"Fans are clingy complaining dipshits who will never ever be grateful for any concession you make. The moment you shut out their shrill tremulous voices, the happier you'll be for it."

I'll let that one slide, since you're new around here and very much entertaining. Like an angry dancing monkey.

You must have some pretty dense players.

If I told my players that half of LA resides in the ocean and Hollywood and Pasadena are now considered beach front property, the first thing they'd be asking is "How did that happen?"

What am I supposed to tell them? "Don't ask"??

- J.

My players can read the material and draw their own conclusions.

To be honest, you have no idea who have been given what warnings.

Drop the mod bashing. You've made your point. You are now only baiting for a fight. Move on.

Which is simply bad writing, as Japan is insane and wacky, though often in not in "in your face" obvious ways.

Isn't japan that Country in which a gigantic Statue of a little girl is sitting astride a major railway so everyone in the trans is literally getting an upskirt of her?
Are Japanese not those people eating raw fish? x.x
that's in your face anough for me ^^
If you have some time on your hands, click this link and read through untill you come to a dead end
http://www.drunkduck.com/Raw_Fish/index.php?p=229965

The picture of the train going under the little girl statue? I heard it was a shop and that seems quite likely. You also don't get windows in the rooves of trains very often. Even if the statue is real it's highly likely that there's no detail under the skirt. That's a waste of money.

Europe drinks the juvenile nutrition of other species of mammal. Don't tell me that eating raw fish is disgusting. We Europeans also eat animal blood. But not even just that. Some pretty cool, enlightened guys ate animal blood. We soak up all the moisture from the animal blood and let it set, then cook that.

i think the used panties vending machine does it for me:
http://www.photomann.com/japan/machines/

towards the bottom, between ice cream and batteries...

Like I said, it's not the blatantly obvious in your face stuff, like Dear Leaders face carved into every mountain. You have look around a bit before you go WTF! That's insane! At least until a few years ago the age of consent in Tokyo was 13. After a rather interesting Wall Street Journal article on Jr High "dating for money" in the late 90s I think it got changed. The Hello Kitty bondage rooms at the "love hotels" are another.

Japan isn't just a western country with funny looking people. It's as alien as Saudi Arabia, but in another way. If a write up doesn't capture a lot of that it's failed.

I didn't put the question marks there for my health, bucko.



But hey, looks like you're letting it slide, so...




What happens when a PM sent by a mod (who is also a member) says it's a "warning" but then it isn't an Administrative Warning and then another moderator flat out lies about the warning to defend himself against criticism? What do we call it then?

It's the secret word of the day, Peewee!

How about: it sank.

On the age of consent, didn't Hawaii operate with 14 as said age until recently?
also: http://www.avert.org/age-of-consent.htm

And if one really start to look for it, there is a whole lot of batshit crazy cultures out there. But in the end, stuff like that highly depends on the eye of the beholder. From someone inside it will look quite natural, while a outside observer will have quite a few moments of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot...

Btw, there is a post somewhere, in it ancient history put a bit of text that was left out of the neo-tokyo chapter (for potentially good reason)...

Mr. Bane,

What is you want? I tend to run against the grain here myself on several topics, but I just don't quite see where you're going here. If your goal is just to provoke the moderators, you're certainly moving in that direction. However, as for getting the mods to reflect on any bias they may have, your 'fist-shaking' approach is unlikely to work. If you start a reasonable thread in te genral section about perceived bias on the boards - and keep it general as opposed to pointing fingers and calling out names - you might get people to examine their views a bit, but but the outrage has to cut back a bit. If you're just pissed off, then you might want to take some time off.

Y'all're madder than a bag of cut snakes. There's plenty of crazy in Neo-Tokyo, we just didn't dwell on it overmuch. After all, anyone that's tried to order an unsweetened ice tea in Georgia knows that crazy has no geographical limitations - just areas of higher density.

Hell no I don't want them to change. Do you understand the pure amusement factor in watching them literally contradict, stumble on, and flat out lie for each other?

Three different times three different mods have said it is incredibly OK for a moderator to lie about the actions he has taken. Not just "not disclose" but say something that directly contradicts reality.

Ideally I'd love to believe that they could change, but you're a bit naive if you think any geek will ever give up the control he desires when he has it or re-evaluate his opinion.

Trying to reason with people who have just about zero social ability (And yes, I am including myself in that geek category) does not work.

Bull has the ultimate power, he makes all the choices, it's his place. Why should he have to think about what he's done? I'm just a nasty ol' troll, and that automatically, in his mind, makes everything Frank and I say obsolete and wrong. Welcome to the rest of the internet.

But since this is the hub of the hobby I once loved and Dumpshock is about as official as you can get, it does feel good to show others what complete liars the Mod crew can be, or at least the owner and two others. Hell, they may not even believe it at first or come to sympathize with the Mods/devs. That is how hero worship works. Buuuuuut...This kind of crap has happened before and it will certainly happen again. Only takes a few times.

Dude! Not cool! I'm an old man lurker here, and go back through many iterations of Dumpshock, Shadowland, and ShadowRN, and I have to say you have got to be the rudest poster I have seen in a long time, hell at least SnaitN was entertaining. You need to take the chip off your shoulder and reread all your posts, many of them are easly flamebait, especally your posts on the SR4 MUX.

To the Mods: Sorry for OT feeding the troll, but this guy makes me yearn for the days of LLS, where trolls were at least entertaining.


I am the Eggman

Why do people seem to be under the impression that I don't realize what I'm posting? This is the most insane thing I have ever heard. I know exactly how my posts look.

But then, I'm not a moderator so the "troll"ish behavior in my posts counts for little. Now, the lying, baiting, and down right bully like behavior in the moderators? Yeah that counts.

Oh, and also I don't care about your entertainment. Why you would think I ever cared to hear about how amusing you think my posts are/aren't is beyond me.

Mr. Bane is now relaxing on a 7 day suspension. Please return this forum to the correct topic.

<<<Nevermind.>>>

Nah, crazy is equally distributed. Just some people have selective blindness towards the crazy they're familiar with.

Culture is just a bunch of things you keep doing because it worked yesterday. There's no meaning, no point to it all. You just copy it from your parents, and that's it. You can't tell me that ain't crazy.

Americans drink their tea with fruit. Brits drink their tea with the fluids that mammalian mothers produce for their children. Both of these are crazy, but to people who've grown up with the practices it's nothing special and they don't question it. Hell, tea is crazy. You take the cured leaves of a particular plant that is grown on the other side of the world and steep them in boiling water for a few minutes, then consume the liquid without the original leaves at all. Coffee - you do the same kind of process with the ground, roasted beans of another particular plant.

Neither Tea nor Coffee contain enough nutrition that you're required to provide nutritional labels on them. At least 1 in 10 people are actual bona fide caffeine addicts. Caffeine was actually produced to kill off animals attempting to consume the leaves or seeds of the plants in question. We also consume other kinds of toxin on a regular basis - alcohol, capsaicin, mint.

Yeah, but I'll be damned if I can come up with that unique brand of Japanese crazy. Or, for that matter, any non-Australian crazy. I would have never thought of running battles on the streets between religious zealots (not the middle east, either. Seriously, go to the middle east, make a friend and get invited in fo dinner. Your stomach will burst.), or eating raw fish, or scab puddings, but it's out there. Now, going for a five day walk by myself with no spare clothes wearing a wetsuit with minimal food through dangerous territory with only one spare rope and one spare carribina, well, that's another matter.

Ah, I miss SnaitN sometimes. At least SnaitN was often rude in-character! *grins*

What took you so long? O.o
Also, when/if he comes back, he will be pretty much frothing at the mouth because of this i am afraid <.<

I feel like Rocky comming out or retirement. One punch and down.
On to the subject...

Anyone hear much about the state of Boston? I haven't bought CE yet (even though I like the initals) but I'm am interested on how Bean Town has faired sence Target:UCAS. I'm an old school 2 and 3ed player/dreamer, but I love the metaplot.

DE: IC SnaitN was a DICK, but in the chat room SnaitN was a dick.
I don't share Dave's opinion of him, but I did feel less at home after LLS became the defacto rulers. I don't want DS to end up with the same problem that SL had, persistant trolls and inefficient mods. Although I do wish to see the Resurection of the Tarantino Age!

Ah *raises glass* to the good old days!

I am the Eggman
- Posting more in 2 days than in the last 2 years

P.S. I wonder who wrote the post Spud? SnaitN? LK? Neby? Enquireing minds want to know.

P.P.S. Still no good built in spell checker or grammer checker, some things never change.

Boston's not in CE, but the last we heard of it, it was ground zero for the second Matrix crash and was then hit by one of the EMPs in System Failure. As a result, the East Coast Stock Exchange moved back to Manhattan, but not much has been mentioned of Boston since.

Which is terrible, because there's lots of interesting things that have happened there. The fact that one of the people who blew open the corp's involvement in the technomancer scare came out of Boston is most interesting to me...

Plus there's MIT&T, the bug hives, the Children of the Dragon creche, organized crime, all sorts of interesting stuff.

One of these days I'll actually post that write-up of Boston I've been talking about.

PS:Don't mention the name Sherman in Georgia either....there are still some people upset at the whole burning of atlanta.

btw, one thing that may yrip up us westeners is that mostt of the non-christian world have a heavy focus on honor, not sin...

I for one would be very interested in the Boston write-up.

- J.

I'm more interested in seeing other large sprawls that have gotten nothing yet. Miami, Philadelphia, and St. Louis all interest me far more than Boston.

Didn't St Louis get written up in SONA? And Miami had a little bit in Cyberpirates, IIRC. I don't think Philly's been touched on much, if at all though.

I remember seeing a seemingly decent web writeup someone has for Philly. But I don't know Philly.

Then write your own.

Ravenmuse said they've already done one for Boston which is why I'm asking.

- J.

They did a write-up of Boston in Target: UCAS. I'm writing my own version that diverges some from the official write-up, but is written by someone who actually lives in Boston.

The Philly writeup was done by Wakshaani, who you can either PM here or at rpg.net.

And yeah, if you're super wanting your city / town to be done, write it up yourself.

You're assuming that I know more about Philly than I can find on wikipedia. That would be a poor assumption.

I have notes for a Miami write-up I've been pondering.

Please share.

Well, don't take this question the wrong way then, but why do you want to play in Philly then? Or any other city / state that you're talking about?

If there's some mystique to it - write it up using that mystique. Find out some local history, tweak as needed to fit SR history, work from there.

I'm writing Boston up because I live in (well, "near" but I doubt any of you have ever heard of Rowley [though it was used in a Lovecraft story once]) and there's a lot of real life and SR history that have happened here.

For example, some of you may have heard of Whitey Bulger. Singlehandedly, this man eliminated a rival group of Irish mobsters *and* the Italian mob in Boston. It's pretty much all Irish mob here. Plus he's a considered a master of disguise (supposedly he's a cross-dresser), he has connections in all levels of the state and regional government, the city of Boston's government, and all sorts of other places (up to and including the Boston Globe) and no one can find him. He got a heads up that the FBI were coming for him and he disappeared off the face of the earth. He's a celebrity around here.

If you want a good primer on Boston area crime, watch Mystic River or The Departed. And yes, our accents are that atrocious.

But that's not even scratching the surface. Ever been through Salem? Yeah yeah, witches and warlocks oooo, but think of the kind of people that would attract in Shadowrun. Salem even has an official town witch (who's been in trouble twice for "hexing" the local police department). There's lots of old indian settlements and Lovecraft based his Mythos stories in my region (he's even buried like, two hours max away from Boston proper).

We're a major hub for international traffic with Logan (and to a lesser degree, Manchester Airport). Tons of ships disembark from Boston and Gloucester (go watch "A Perfect Storm"; they filmed less than fifteen minutes away from my house and a bunch of coworkers are extras in it). The T service in Boston proper was one of the first of its kind in America. Our trains run from up into the top of Maine all the way to New York and beyond.

There's lots of higher education here, including several Ivy League schools and MIT(&T). We've got a steadily growing health and technology field and Hollywood is setting up a sub-Hollywood here too (boo). There's a lot of Boston based entertainment companies.

Barrens? Dorchester, Lynn, Quincy, Framingham. Rich mucky mucks? Martha's Vineyard is your shining beacon. Martha Stewart lives there and its the summer home to some of the richest people in the country. When you get north of Boston, you're traveling into fairly rich homes - those that aren't occupied by cranky oldies that haven't been pushed out yet.

Political clout? Kennedy's. Look at the applause that Teddy gets whenever he's able to get to Washington. We're also fairly liberal for being such a nanny state (true story: we've passed a law that says that kindegartners must come to school now with toothbrushes. Why?). We even (semi) legalized marijuna!

And there's been SR history here too. Mostly tech stuff like MIT&T, it's where those ex-members of Echo Mirage got killed, there's the technomancer that I already mentioned, the memorial to the victims of Crash 2.0, there's Children of the Dragon creches, 'Dyne industries is located here, until recently the Stock Exchange was around here (and we were the second home for a lot of the refugees from the NY quake of 2006)...

I mean, it's not just nostalgia and being proud of my state that makes me want to run here. There's a ton of possibilities that you can play with. If you're just like, "well, this place needs a write-up" then do a low depth scan of some history and current events and run from there. Extrapolate from the official SR maps to figure out what the political landscape looks like. But you have to approach it with an idea in mind of what you want from it, y'know?

Somewhere in there I have to work in Red Sox / Suzie Pinkhats jokes though. No one would get it, but it would be awesome.

To summarize, I was going to focus on Miami as a city of spies, a sunny East Berlin between the CAS, the Caribbean League, Aztlan, and Amazonia. The stop-over point for those crossing the Orange Curtain and the chessboard for all the spy games between those powers.

Spies, pirates, Communists, metahuman communities, Voudoun hougans, the Mafia, Jamaican Posses, and an oppressive police force would keep the place very lively.

Sounds great! Any chance that its sister city of Havana would get a write-up along with it?

If Miami still gets a write-up from me, it'll be an unofficial fan project. As for Havana, I didn't have any plans, but it'd be difficult to do a Miami write-up without at least mentioning Havana.

We've been playing a campaign for years in Miami, and we hardly ever touch Havanna.

If you CAN do a Write-Up like that, it would be awesome.
Silly to no end, but awesome

I take it this was before the place really went to shit in Threats 2.

I notice you're missing the nuke sub pirates and mercs trained by Dunkelzahn.

By all means, do. Please?

That was at least partially resolved in Shadows of Latin America. But one tidbit about it will be mentioned in an upcoming book, I believe.

Come on, do it!
We want this writeup about as much as we want SHADOWRUN: IIN SPAACEE!!