So my next major Shadowrun campaign slash project slash thing is going to be Shadowrun as viewed through the lens of Film Noir. I have put up a brief intro on the wiki my players and I use for all of our local games here for those interested. I wish I could take credit for the artwork, but it's pretty much all stolen from google image search and deviant art, if that bugs you, sorry.

What I am looking for is for help brainstorming what kinds of runs would you see in this setting. The campaign is a long way off, and I have no idea what the player characters will look like, I just want some seed ideas without blatantly ripping off old movie plots.

Ideally, the game would start at the 'street gumshoe' level, and work into being more of a globe trotting 'Casablanca' "We'll always have Paris" type deal. Feel free to throw out idea for all levels.

Character and NPC ideas are valid too. I just want some idea of what other people think when someone says 'Shadowrun + Noir'

I think something along the lines of the Marvel Noir series.

As a matter of fact, I'm running a campaign like this right now here on Dumpshock. The links are in my signature, but basically it's Shadowrun meets Film Noir set in Caracas, to give it that South American flair. I think one of the most important things you can do to make a good Shadowrun meets Noir campaign is to pick the appropriate city. When I read Caracas' entry in Runner Havens, it practically screamed noir to me, and I knew that I had to use it. Most other cities don't really fit the bill for various reasons.

If you want to promote the noir aspect in the PCs, set up special chargen rules that promote and REQUIRE taking various negative qualities. For my campaign, I came up with a list of appropriate negative qualities that I thought would be sufficient for emphasizing a noir-inspired campaign, and told the players that they had to pick at least one of them. However, they could take as many as they wanted to from that list, since they gave back 1.5 times the base BP. That means Uncouth would give them 30 BP extra to spend instead of 20, for example. It incentivizes making noir-esque characters that are also a tad bit over the base power level, but not brokenly so.

Pick a dangerous city where life doesn't have much value, and where it's easier to kill what's inside you to live another day than to live with hope. Instruct your players to make flawed characters who aren't heroes so much as they are protagonists. Give them rotten moral dilemmas to deal with, and watch them try to keep those shreds of humanity inside of them or to slip further and further down the slippery slope of abject nihilism.

Most importantly, make sure any players you choose are MATURE roleplayers. Not just in their ability to accept and deal with adult themes, but also in that they'll keep with the theme of the game and not try to make flawless, one-sided characters. Make sure everyone is on the same page with the game, so that one person isn't trying to play something else while everyone else is trying to explore a noir-themed game.

If you'd like, read through the first few pages of the IC thread for Caracas: Hole in the Heart. There's some top-notch writing in there, and you'll see how we all collectively have tried to emphasize those dark themes that make noir so great. The campaign is special to me because it's not really just my show: everyone in the game, players and GM alike, have put much into that game. It's been a fun, collaborative effort for us all.

As for run ideas, most any basic type of run would fit the bill in a noir campaign, it's just the trimming and the details that you'll modify. Emphasize corruption in the power structures, so that cops can be bought off and made to look the other way. Play up on story ideas where bad things happen to good people, and bad people get away with doing them. Highlight scarcity and need in impoverished areas, and show the extents that people will go to in order to keep their bodies alive, but perhaps at the cost of their souls.

That's all I've got for now.

Excellent advice, thank you, I will defiantly take a look in your threads.

And I've given myself 9-12 months to plan out this campaign and get everyone on the same page character wise, so I think getting everyone on the same page as far as what I am looking for won't be as much of an issue.

If you look at the best film noir-Matlses Falcon, Big Sleep etc as well as the works of writers like Chandler there is often a lot of confusion and back stabbing. Common for SR-where do you think they got the ideas but often mugs will put pressure on someone who doesn't know why or who sent them like 'what were you doing at Sardi's last friday' and you weren't there, and a tendency to find stuff you shouldn't -like a dead body.

I would not say it is in a place where life is cheap, just the opposite. say you're amoung the beautiful people of Hollywood or the french riviera, they don't want blood or violence, that's what keeps it under control-violence is limnited to a few punches or shots. If life is cheap then it will be a shoot out, but suppose you're at the palyboy mansion to meet your contact in the grotto, the problem is you get there and there happens to be someone's former girl firend/ boyfriend face down in the hot tube and maong their clothes is the file your contact was suppose to give you?

I have written an article about Noir in Shadowrun but it's in French. It can be found here.
I've summed it up in English here

Adding to the film list, check out "Double Indemnity". Its /the/ noir film, and its based in L.A. It raised a ruckus when it was shown because its teh first film where the /main/ character goes for a murder plan, instead of fighting it.

Now, about characters:

The Femme Fatale.

She is sexy, well dressed, slightly obnoxious but deffinitely intoxicating to be around with. She was an innocent girl, but no more. She smokes a lot and she drinks a lot -whiskey is her favourite-. Coming from a poor neighborhood she wants material things, and recognises these as the trademrks of success. Her contacts are people with power -something that draws her in- and a few fuck ups -those she abandoned-.
She was born a brunette but is now a blonde.

High Con, and she uses a lot of seduction, but no carnal contact. Make eye contact and speak in a purr. Promise a lot, but never deliver. Her logic is high, she is a long term planner, her willpower in the mid-low ranges, and her physical attributes are low. Her decadent lifestyle takes a toll in her health. It doesn't matter, she has the tough guy to look out for her. She can intimidate a cybered troll ganger into submission as well.

Obvious builds: Adept, Mage
Fitting builds: How about making her a mundane face without cyber or bioware, but using qualities to build up her social dice pool? Not min maxed at all, but: Trustworthy, First Impression, ExceptionalA ttribute (Charisma) and Aptitude (Con) or (Negotiations) can go a long way into making her a cool character built only on her natural talent. It suits her quite a bit.

The Tough Guy.

He has a three day beard, uses a hat and can bare fist box like no one else can. He dropped the traditional and cliché'd trenchcoat and revolver for a
sakura fubuki and a SOTA avatar when he walks around. He is good with technology and has an automated -Agent- secretary in his Virtual Office Space that looks like a hot redhead. He takes his jobs here.

He drinks whiskey and is a heavy smoker. He has a heart of gold, but is very ambitious. He deffinitely wants to imrpove his lot in life, and though he wouldn't do the grittier jobs, if he's offered a high pay, he'll go for it.

Obvious builds: Cybered guy
Cool builds: Occult investigator, from BBB, with a twist.

Edit
More coming as I get ideas.

Read the novel 2XS. It is pretty noir in itself.

You might look at finding some music that inspires a film noir type feeling.

This song just screams film noir to me: Alice by Tom Waits.

Tom Waits rules.

From the noir runs I have run.

One problem with a noir theme in a rp game is that you have to keep the players, not just their characters, hungry for the next clue/puzzle piece. Taking the Maltese falcon, as an example per a typical noir investigation (hell any investigation), you get a lot of information before anything makes sense. You often also have the main protagonist be a better investigator than the viewer/reader, so they have more of idea of whats going on with said info to keep the reader interested. Not the case in RP, it generally has to be the other way round to work. (not always but mostly.)

Shadowrun lends itself to noir as you can use the same moral colour palatte. With the intrigues though, try ultimately to target the player not just the character. Cos old ternacious gumshoe that never quits, just might if the player gives up.

Keep the story with a degree of short term targets in the early stages, littered with red herrings, mix ups which reveal more and confuse some, put in several corner puzzle pieces evenly spaced (not just one big reveal) so they can start to see the picture. build up to a big moral choice with lots of little ones.

General I know, but the setting can subsume the experence you trying to use it to provide.

All excellent stuff guys. I have a few movies to track down now as well.

I read 2XS back when it first came out, and the follow up book that takes place in Hawa'ii. Good stuff.

Thanks for all the replies, I am taking lots of notes I'll post summary later on when I get it all sorted out in my head.

Blade Runner. Done.

Okay, as for the mistery part you should know that its one of the trickiest things to do ina game.
You want red herrings, and the excitement that comes with them, but you don't want the players to know its a red herring.
You don't want them to know right away who the killer is, but you /want/ them to find it out...

The best way to do it is by the rule of three. Assume they will be mislead by clues, assume they won't get that obvious clue, assume they will fail that important perception roll (even if it is only 1 success they need, they use all their edge and roll 99 dice for spotting. Its going to happen, trust me.).

What do you do?

For every bit of knowledge you want them to have, prepare three different ways for them find it out ("And remember the Three Clue Rule:

For any conclusion you want the PCs to make, include at least three clues.", quote is taken from link below)

Sometimes all three lead to the same result (Coronel Mustard left fingerprints, on the revolver and there are gunpowder remains in the kitchen). Once they follow one of the leads you can decide whether this one is the true one or a red herring. If its the true one, good. If its not, you still keep two other ways for them to find out...

You know what? This is better exlpained in: http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/mi...-clue-rule.html
It is much, way much, better explained there. So use that.

Also use this: http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/mi...ode-design.html You'll avoid railroading.

Also the rest of the webpage is very good, so I'll blatantly advertise the home page: http://www.thealexandrian.net/

There. Enjoy.

This is more of a general GMing tip but I think in film noir type things it becomes even more important.

Lets say the clue is a fancy pen with gold etchings or some such. When describing make sure that you give at least as much attention to detail to the things around the pen as the pen itself.

Dont say something along the lines of:

"On the desk is an intricately wrought pen with golden etchings and the stylized figure of a lion."

Do say something along the lines of:

"On the cherry wood desk there are several folders scattered about in various states of organization. A coffee ring sits stains the left hand side of the desk nearby several pieces of loose paper weighed down by a pen with golden etchings on it."

If you over-describe something its going to immediately stand out and become obvious that its important, if you under describe it it's going to be written off as unimportant. The key is finding that balance without obviously pointing at the pen and say "Look Blue! I Found a Clue!"

Seems like an obvious tip but I've seen allot of GMs who make the mistake.

I agree. On the other hand,. sometimes you want them to know its a clue. Don't spoon feed it, but don't make it so hard on the players they won't know it.

Also, knowledge skills are more /your/ friends than the character's. They are great ways of having the players find out information their characters have but they don't. Think they are metagaming tools in the inverse: The character makes that ignorant and newbie player behave like the shadows veteran he tries to portray.

Hence: Make knowledge skills something the players want to spend their karma on.

The rain pattered against the cheap construction plastic I used to replace the glass long shot out of my windows of the office that I used as a place to crash. The flickering neon lights of the local Bunraku Parlor gave them a surreal look as they dripped down.

The office had all the comforts of home. A cot to sleep on, and a bottle to keep me company. I was sitting on the broken office chair behind the battered desk that came with the office, being good to my friend Johnny Walker. You help your friends when they're Blue. The frosted glass on the door somehow had stayed intact despite the neighbourhood, which allowed me to see the figure approach it in silhouette. The figure opened the door as my hand went to the holster under the desk and I got a mittful of Miranda, my 10mm speaking companion, but I relaxed my grip when I saw that it was a classy dame, obviously out of her element.

From her thick, but curvy figures hugged highly by her stylish skirtsuit of the latest Horizon Corporate style. Her delicate tusks dulled professionally and capped in silver, or possibly even platinum. The way the suit was on her it was proof that she wasn't wearing a weapon worthy of the name, nor even a bra. She had probably needed to have been sewn into it.

I should have known better than to relax... Every other woman in my life had been trouble, and this one... This one was worse than all the rest put together.

Heh, that girl ought to be the Femme Fatale from my description... future running companion and an Ork face. Gotta stat her up.

Honestly, you could easily dump Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe into Shadowrun... They'd have a better gun, some computer skills, maybe some cyber or bio... But, other than that, you've just described a pretty fair share of most PCs.

Mike Hammer can come and play too.

True. What I actually liked was the description. Standard, yes, but well done, with taste and using the familiar grounds of the setup to best effect. That was what inspired me to make the character, also I was kind of itching for a,ong time to make an ork face. This girl is a good and fair start.

Standard? Hell, that was practically hardboiled detective boilerplate!

While bladerunner is great for mood the plot line is terribly straight forward, read books or see great film noir and it's far more complicated.

I would also say that there are mutliple protagonists, this makes it more confusing. For example look at the Maltese Falcon, if your doing Borgart and think Sydney Greenstreet is the only opposition then it's pretty straight forward, but in fact Greenstreets so called partners like Peter Lorre were also running their own games and this doesn't keep things simple.

A better example is in The Big Sleep where you don't know who did what, person A shoots person B and then person C unkonwn, hides the body of B for reasons of his own.

While Bogart follows leads to person D, who actually was robbing B but didn't kill him, Person C following the same clues, leaps to the same wrong conclusion and kills D to avange B when A really did it- confused yet? When they made the Big Sleep they realized they had one dead body(no not B) that they couldn't explain away. They called the stories writer and his response was 'hell if I know"-that's a mess to create but wow for story lines. remember the characters might not get all the answers, but hey, welcome to my world

Life is rarely easy to explain. Things happen for the damnedest reasons.

My second story happened (The one where I introduced Nas)... Well, read it to find out why.

For a more real life thing of people doing the damnedest things, talk to someone who has worked Tech Support... After they're done gibbering madly in the corner, they'll tell you some horror stories of people doing things for no sane reason whatsoever.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a dead body or two involved.

I know that I'm never allowed to go to New York because of the work I've done...

I started a noir type game on DS that died after the first meet. So here's a bit of the plot:


it could use another twist or turn, but I think its a good seed
quick link to the old game

Necropost +1

I said I would update when I had more, so here is an update with more.

I have decided to set the Noir game in Miami. The advice to pick a city carefully was good advice, and I think Miami will work out well for many reasons, not the least of which is that my group has never run in Miami, so it's different and will force them out of their usual styles.

Here is the barebones entry on our groups private wiki for the curious: http://www.shadowlandbbs.net/wacko/?page=SRNMiami&v=k2f

For those that don't want to follow the link, here is what I am using for character generation:


* 380 pt characters
* Skill cap of four. Five with spec.
* Attribute cap of four prior to racial mods, with the exception of Magic and Resonance, which are capped at five.
* Special exception might be made for one attribute if it is intrinsic to your concept, but even then, a cap of 6 is most likely. No Reaction scores of 14.
* 5x Charisma in free contacts rather than the normal x3 house rule. Single contact connections capped at 4, groups at 6.
* In addition, there will be established contacts with set connection ratings that may be purchased for loyalty costs alone with the free contact points. (Example, a pre-written fixer with a connection of 4 can be purchased at 2/4 for 2 of the free points)
* Gear Availability capped at 10 - possibly even 8, need to see what that allows.
* The Restricted Gear quality is not allowed. Nor are Trust Fund, or Day Job, or any Quality that gives regular income.
* Intuition + Logic x 4 in Free Knowledge Skills, rather than x 3.
* Maximum of 25 bp spent on resources.
* Certain negative qualities will count for 1.5 value. Things such as Addiction: Moderate+, Prejudice, Enemy, etc. The extra .5 will not count toward Negative Quality cap.
* Non-combat skills will be able to be bought at a reduced point cost. Perhaps 3 or 3.5. For purposes of this discount, Hacking, Threading, Sorcery, etc., count as combat skills.

Best Noir game I've ever run was based in an arcology. It's basically the only means to keep the atmosphere claustrophobic enough for a mystery, and the power levels low enough to keep problems from being most easily resolved with ambush murderations.

...my old Rhapsody in Shadow campaign has a strong Noir theme and style. Being set in Europe in 2062, it dealt more with the angle of political intrigue. It was influenced be several of the films already mentioned as well as one of my favourites, The Third Man.

As the characters discovered more clues the next layer of the scenario was revealed, very much like in the film. It also employed bit of the old "decision tree" format of the early Shadowrun adventure modules which in many ways was like the node based scenario discussed in the essay link above.



As I am about to GM a revised version of the campaign (still using 3rd ed) with a new group, I cannot discuss actual details at this point.

Sharp pain slammed itself into my back as my lined duster's ballistic gel did it's job, solidifying and dispersing the force of the 10mm bullet over the whole of my lower back. My kidneys would be unhappy for awhile. I promised them scotch in the future to keep them from aching. I turned around, seeing the corporate suit standing stupidly as I looked at him with hate filled eyes. He raised the pistol again, the laser sight playing on my chest as he moved it towards my head.

"Unauthorized firearm discharge detected, incapacitating assailant with extreme prejudice!" Came an automated voice, barely heard over the sound of fully automatic fire from the sentinel turrets built into the corners of the hallway. The suit had spared no expense in his security, but it had been his downfall.

I had to hand it to him. He wasn't any street monster like the scum I normally had to deal with. He was soft, weak, fat off of the sweat and blood of those underneath him, but he lived despite the damage done to his body. I simply smiled as I showed him the Colt Manhunter that had been in his desk minutes before, while he stared in amazement at the Laser-Sighted Walther Secura in his hands. His own assassin's gun was now the death of him as his security system did not recognize the distinctive report of the Colt. He tried to say something, but blood was all that came up from his mouth as he fell forward, an empty shell of a man for decades, finally emptied completely by his own paranoia.

I tossed the Colt into the nearest waste basket, my gloved hands leaving no evidence of myself on the unfired weapon.

Walking outside, I turned my collar up to ward off the rain, my hat pulled down low over my head. Kaptain Kracker had said she would keep the cameras from recording me, but there was no need to take risks. All the blood, all the pain, and it ended with a single gunshot from a dead man's own hand. I walked into the dark city, lit only by neon and streetlights flickering fitfully at trying to keep the shadows from consuming this small piece of civilization.

I had just walked out of the civilized world, and found it to be even more barbaric than the streets.

"Rest well, Doll." I whispered, thinking of the dame that had started this all. Thinking that the only thing worth a damn in this life was memories of beauty...

Most of the film suggestions have been pretty good. If you're into novels, then you may want to check out KW Jeters' Noir, which is set in a dystopic future Los Angeles. the main character has a filter for his cybereyes that make everything appear as a Bogart film.

You could also do something similar with the Matrix, with an explicitly designed Noir film reality filter (I forget the in-game term) for cyberspace, similar to some of Picard's jaunts to the holodeck in ST:TNG.

So in the Sixth World, use the tropes, cliches, and plots of Noir cinema, as has been suggested. With the Matrix, have it actually look like the films as well.

--sugarman--

There is a cybersuite that is aimed at detectives in Augmented, you could attach a Noir Filter to that.

...that was how the Serbian National Matrix was sculpted in my RiS campaign. Actually had the player of the team's decker on the edge of his seat as he made his way through it. Fortunate for him his icon didn't down the "Black Russian" the slinky dame over at the bar bought him.

The Casablanca Government Office Matrix Node looks like Rick's Cafe. The casino in back is where you go to get your paperwork filed. It's about as much of a gamble.

Well you could easily do most of what is going on in Burn Notice, not much is going to change in that city between now and then.

I'm not sure the SR ruleset really lends itself to Noir, because it doesn't really have any ability to change, reflect or even monitor the internal life of characters, which Noir cares about quite a bit. You might take a look at porting games built to do Noir well (like A Dirty World) to the Shadowrun setting.

That's mostly Role Playing, and should be dealt as such. And, frankly, if a group is going to aim for Film Noir, their going to be made up mostly of True Role Players.

You don't need a system for personality and history as far as I'm concerned. Oh, sure, it helps, but...

The ugly mug in front of me had a roscoe with a muzzle like a train tunnel pointed right at my belly, his smile showing broken and stained teeth and a lifetime of hitting and getting hit for money. “Time for ya ta meet da fishes in da sea.” He sneered at me, feeling full of power and fury. My brother was the person that had given him the dental work, and he was looking at payback.

“Works better if the safety is off.” I said, looking at the pistol. He looked at it as well as my left hand took it out of his mitt, and my right fist, the metal one, ensured that his face would continue to stop clocks. The sensors in the fingers felt breaking teeth, and I smiled, full of power and fury as I turned the heater back at him. “'Course, revolvers don't really have safeties. They're very dangerous things. Dangerous to hold and use.” I said, flipping the cylinder out and dropping the old style brass cases into the gutter, soaking them in the dirty rainfall. I flipped my wrist and the cylinder went back to where it belonged.

He tensed up to move, turned to run away, but didn't even make the first step as I flipped the revolver around in my grip and gave him a knot on the head that he wouldn't forget for a week and a day. He crumpled to the ground like yesterday's flats. I snorted, “Damn things, guns. Any punk with a piece thinks he's got God's might in his hand, when all he's got is just what he started with. Nothing.”