I'm about to start running the Denver Missions adventures, and I know very little about its culture. One of my players wants to get deep into the backstories of her contacts, so I need good solid leads on what the people there are apt to be like. Movies with good examples of the types of people we might meet would be especially helpful.

Thanks in advance!

[Edit:] What languages would primarily be spoken in 207X Denver? I'm thinking mostly English, Sioux, and Spanish (based on surrounding cultures and demographical makeup)?

So Far, most useful language skills were the ones used dealing with criminal Groups.

So, Chinese For Triads, Jap for Yakuza, Sioux for Koshari and Black Cats, Spanish For Gangers and Casquillo and Chavez Mafia, Russian for the Vory Kirilov and Autoritey.

Very good advice, thank you!

English is pretty useful, too.

Lol. Maybe, but i assume all players speak cityspeak.

Any books detailing what it was like in Berlin just after WWII would be the most helpful.

I would guess that English is the lingua franca of Denver, and the one that official edicts take place in. Understand that English is STILL an official language in the 2 NAN states that are part of Denver... in reality everything in canon has said that tribal languages are spoken by small segments of the population. This is understandable when you take into account that, for example, the Pueblo Corporate Council is made up of Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, and a host of other smaller tribes, each with their own languages.

Aztlaner Spanish is more than likely NOT spoken, since Aztlan is no longer a part of the treaty (by edict of Ghostwalker), and speaking it would be inviting trouble.

I was asking so I would know what linguasofts to purchase. The character in question is a native English speaker.

That's a good point on native languages and Aztlaner Spanish. Thanks, LO.

Mandarin Cityspeak? Japanese Cityspeak? Moskva-ezik?

Every thriving language in 207x has a Cityspeak dialect.

Also, if I were you, I would get the names and a brief description of all available contacts on denver missions and make a list to show to your players. This way, they can acquire contacts that will show up often on the missions instead of choosing "generic" contacts that will never have any interaction with the missions except as source of intel or gear.

I would almost think that Cityspeak is based on the native 'plex, rather than its parent language. Cityspeak, after all, is a collection of loanwords, accents, grammar, slang and made up words which reflect the culture particular city it is in. For example, there is the Soda/Pop/Coke divide. In most of the country, if you order a "Coke", you'll be asked if you want Diet or Regular. In places like Atlanta or some parts of Texas, if you order a "Coke", you'll be asked "what kind?" Saying "Pepsi" or "Root Beer" is an acceptable answer (if you wanted a Coca-Cola, you would say that, BTW).

Cities with a high degree of immigrant populations of a particular nation may adopt certain words from that other language into everyday speech.

Shinobi, you are forgetting that some contacts can get killed in missions if the players kill them/screw the mission Up. It's creepy to loose a contact like that, because you lost BP on him. Imagine that you pick a Yakuza Lietenant as a contact, and the Triads geeked him on a traffic jam at the first run, like what happened on our table?

With regards to Cityspeak; in the first and second editions of Shadowrun, it was described and handled as its own separate language. A lingua franca of the international sprawls.

In this approach it is clearly the Cityspeak from Bladerunner. In the film, Deckard describes the language:

• "That gibberish he talked was Cityspeak, gutter talk, a mishmash of Japanese, Spanish, German, what have you. I didn’t really need a translator. I knew the lingo, every good cop did. But I wasn’t going to make it easier for him."
• In the film, Cityspeak also used words from Hungarian, Chinese, and French. (There was also non-Cityspeak dialog in Korean.)

Only with the change in language mechanics for SR3 was Cityspeak simplified to being separate specializations of traditional languages.

In my games I work under the assumption that anyone with a Cityspeak specialization can speak to anyone else with a Cityspeak specialization, as if they both had a common language at rating 2. This moves it back to a practical lingua franca, rather than interesting fluff that becomes useless as soon as you hop on a plane. For anyone who feels that a worldwide Cityspeak is unrealistic, I blame it on the pervasiveness of the Matrix.

I like that. It's interesting enough to use even if it didn't make sense, which it kind of does.

How often do you use the language rating anyway? Like, as a dice pool maximum mentioned in the rules? Even 6 (max for non-native language) is pretty low..

We always cap successes by the rating when using non-native laguages with Social Skills... always... makes it useful to have high ratings in the languages...

Have found that Rating 4 is generally not to bad... I think of all the languages the character I play speaks, he only has a very few (3 total) that are at a 5, the rest are 4's (with Two 2's)

Others may have different experiences of course...

Keep the Faith

That is the common rule for social skills and being limited by how well you can convey the ideas in that language. It definitely gets players investing karma in higher ratings for their languages and usually more languages.

Well, sure, but that could happen on a campaign totally created by you too, so I don't see the problem, this could happen with anyone, which just means that if a contact of yours show up on a mission, you better watch his back, just in case...



Hey Garou, what you think of that? I liked Tymeaus' idea, it doesn't need to be the actual rating of the language the roof number but something close.

Well, there weren't many situations for this to happen. Everyone in denver seems to speak english, at least marginally well.

Koshari should speak one of the Pueblo languages, not Sioux.

Okay, but what are those?

*pops upstairs*

Denver has 83% English spoken. No other languages listed. I presume its proportion of fluent speakers.

From the nations -

CAS 88% English 15% Spanish
UCAS 91% English
Pueblo 90% English 64% Spanish 32% Zuni
Sioux 90% English 14% Dakota 11% Lakota 10% Tsalagi (Cherokee)

So the Koshari probably all speak English well, but if you want to impress them say hi in Zuni.

You do realize the Koshari are limited to the PCC right? So it'd be Hopi or Pueblo.
Mark

Okay, glad for the language clarifications.

So, may I change from Sioux to Hopi?

"Pueblo" is the name given to the group of natives from that area as a whole; it is not a language unto itself. Individual tribes, such as the Zuni and Hopi, are part of that group.

Indecently, the Vice book implies that the Koshari are made up of the Zuni and Hopi tribes, but doesn't mention the others.

As of SoNA (2062) the Zuni and Hopi were over 80% of the Pueblo's tribal population. Zuni is the only listed native language.