This little clarification deserves its own thread.

SR4 is not SR D20.

I've read a lot of, "Oh, Divine Presence! Please don't let this be SR D20!"

If it was SR d20, it would be called...SR D20, not SR4. If it were SR D20, the official announcement would read, "We're releasing a D20 conversion of SR!", instead of reading, "We're releasing a new edition with streamlined rules and other shiny goodness!"

So, to repeat...SR4 is not SR D20. Put the gun down.

Noted.

"Put the gun down" !?!

This is the one chance we have of getting all the chicken littles to shoot themselves!

But... if they shoot themselves, where's the fun for us?

Relax. Let everyone vent. This is big shit around here. They'll calm down in a few days.

Besides, running around like a chicken with its head cut off, responding to every anit-SR4 post will make age before your time, chummer.

(will they still say "chummer" in SR4?)

I fucking hope not. The fake slang is probably one the absolute stupidest things in SR.

Eh, I dunno. I can see "chummer" "drek" and "scan" being used (though they'll definately have changed in FIVE YEARS), but "hoop" I'd definately not mind seeing go far away and take a dirt nap. Every time I read it/hear about it the word takes me completely out of the game. But of course that's just my own personal hangup.

I kinda like "hoop." I thougt it was a clever way of avioding "asshole." It still makes me snicker.

There's really no doubt that slang changes and disassociates over time. That's the point, after all. But the way SR did it from the start— namely, replacing words just to sound politically correct and kid friendly while eventually integrating subjects like organlegging and human trafficking, to name only a few— was not only very obviously nondiagetic and contrived. It was unbelievably stupid. I'd like it reexamined with no other explanation that a simple acknowledgement that the original approach was wrong and should be corrected before moving into a new revision, continuity be damned. Not all the words are necessarily awful, but the vast majority need to go.

Fuck, shit, damn, man— these will be with us for a very, very long time.

Fuckin'-A.

Thanks to people like you and me.

Funny thing, my whole group goes to church together. We're evangelicals and don't swear that much (well yeah, but that dude really made me mad when he cut me off.) We never used the "future-cuss". I don't think we'll notice one way or the other. I have been getting strange looks for my use of "frell" lately though.

The slang expressions may be cheesy, but they do lend flavour. In the shadowtalk you don´t notice it that much because you´re so used to it. But when I saw that talk in a video game for the first time, I couldn´t stop smiling! It might be that the SNES game was so cute (just look at those little piles of pixels dancing in the night clubs! they´re shakin´it chummers).

Okay, granted, but if my gaming group started talking like this, I'd be seriously irked. It'd just be over the edge.

Well, my game doesn´t run in english either so we´re both safe.

Where did you get the idea that the SR slang was done to be 'politically correct,' and 'kid friendly?' Language changes over time, and the writers wanted to try and come up with something that added flavor, and what are words that you're pretty much guranteed to hear come up in a roleplaying session?

Yep. Hoop, drek, frag, and geek. I like it, because it gives the language used character, without going too far like some attempts to make games with neo-speak have done.

Well, we have one player who uses "geek" every once in a while, and we sometimes use chummer (though not me, since the only thing me and my characters tend to have in common is being conservative about language) ... but really, it doesn't add that much.

I'd much rather like to have Cyberware have realistic names, not just a metagaming name like 'wired reflexes 2', how can you in-game tell a Johnson you want wired reflexes 2 and a level 3 reaction enhancement as a payment? Like with vehicles, a piece of cyberware needs a name - possibly three alternatives. You don't call a Steel Lynx a 'Body 4, Armour 9 combat drone (wheeled crawler)' either, do you?

And a bit belated ... yes, the SR game was really cute. Just how noone recognised you with the sunglasses on!

The slang is helpful sometimes.

I play in Utah, so some of my players say stuff like "fetch" and "poptart" for swear words.

I kid you not.

Hearing one of the say "frag!" when they screw up is a welcome relief!

"Geek the mage" just rolls off the tongue, I think. That has to be one of my favorite phrases from SR.

I'm partial to Geek the Fragging Mage's Hoop, chummer!

As someone who drives by schools, overing the first game free, I appreciate having lingo that isn't PG rated. That's the first thing parents notice (and 'bunraku' is probably a bit out of their league for them to pick up on it at all.)

Some of the words are kinda lame. Fragger... Meh. But some are great! 'Slitch' is terrific, and 'drekcetera' is just fun.

Sure, keep the nasty words, but think about 'em a little more first. Grab real words no one knows (maybe Cockney or something), or words that somehow sound like the original, so you still get the forceful feel. I am scratching my head on how a bunch of Germans couldn't make up some good, tough, nasty sounding words to replace 'frag'.

Chum the geekin frag's mage Alice?

And 'Drek' is based on a German word anyway...
("Dreck" = "Filth" or "Dirt"...more or less)

Eh. I use "slitch" in regular conversation. (Well, not regular conversation, but you get my point.)

Um, Drek is also Yiddish for shit