Ok say I want to get all old school with out digging out the old rules (I'm pro the new rules).

What do I have to do to keep the old feel. Clearly no Technomanacers or wired matrix ...or what ... cause not having wireless coms when we already do is just odd.

How would you do it ... do you do it in your game what is the way in your opinion.

"We" are not an issue.
Shadowrun is not set 70 years into our future. It is set 90 years into the future of the late 1980's, as envisioned by people living in the late 1980's.
Also, the entire matrix functionality of SR4 should be tossed out. Not just wireless stuff. Everything. The way programs work is off. as well as some other things.

My advice would be to read up on first edition Shadowrun. Try and get hold of the book. Read through it, see how things worked. Then see how you can translate that to the 4th edition system.

You can't really talk someone out of thinking it's an issue. A lot of people simply do not care about 1st edition, full stop. Hell, I have ran games for people who weren't even alive in the '80s. Cyberpunk may be a genre with its own conventions but ultimately many players won't be interested in a game that cannot work outside of those limitations.

I have it to hand now along with 2nd 3rd and 4th

Very true. The OP said he wants to run a 2050 game though. And an SR 2050 game is tied into the SR setting. If that setting doesn't interest you, you'd probably have more fun playing 2070, or 2069 if you want to be rid of technomancers and AIs altogether.

I am a child of the 60's so I'm ok with the retro approach BUT....

I'd like to look at how I could combine wired tech into a 2050's setting without maybe going so far as Otaku/technomancers.

I guess one approach would be to say no Technomancers and comlinks = effectively the size look of a type 7 cyberdeck maybe a bit smaller
and there you go that's a playable hack of the 4th ed rules to 2050?

I'd go into computer skills are Logic + Skill capped or added to by Program as well. And Look over Cyber and Bioware. And forget all about SURGE.

My take on using SR4 rules to play in SR1–SR3 eras is that AR hacking is possible over wireless, but that VR hacking requires 1) more bandwidth than wireless could provide, and 2) more hardware than fits in a palm-sized comlink.

So if the run involves serious work on the matrix you need a "decker", a hacker with a large keyboard-sized VR-com commonly known as a "deck".

This gets you mostly back to the run style of the older adventures while being something that players used to wireless in real life can still buy into.

P.S. As a tech geek that had internet access before SR1 was released, I always thought the matrix tech was too primitive even back then, and even in the 1990's convinced my primary GM that what SR was then calling "pocket secretaries" would be able to do much more then the rules implied. IE my games have had "comlinks" for quite sometime, and they could do anything a deck could do short of VR.

P.P.S. Memory (unlimited in SR4, important to the "world" of SR1)
I would go with decks and other large devises effectively have SR4 rules for memory (i.e. effectively unlimited). But regular pocket sized comlinks—while having all they need for regular day-to-day use, and even being effectively unlimited for most data—just do not have the space for the amount of data simsense (and therefor VR) need. So hackers/deckers still need a deck (or separate dedicated portable storage to use with a comlink) for stealing VR related paydata. So per SR4 rules, ignore Mp references in old adventures, unless the data is Simsense/VR scale massive, and if so then a deck (or a portable harddrive) is needed.

I was thinking this very thing not so long ago...

Equipment (Particularly Cybernetics and Bioware) would be very different in availability and general usage. Cyberlimbs might get you a second look, but Cyberoptics and DataJacks wouldn't. Almost anything else is MilSpec and usually isn't seen by John Q. Wageslave or Johnny Ultraviolent the Pink-Mohawked Punk. The rest is available as shown in the sourcebooks, with "Old" equipment mentioned in the Fluff also available, and new stuff coming out as the years pass by.

The rules for Hacking becoming Decking by just having CommLinks exchanged for the prices of their equivalent Cyberdecks in SR1/2, and, yes Virginia, it is all wired again. Oh, and you better be prepared to pay through the nose for Data Storage! Optical memory isn't cheap enough to put into anything and everything, and you need to buy what accounts to portable hard drives and fingertip-sized Optical Chips.

Due to the Balkanization of North America and The Crash, the Cell Phone Network was ripped apart and is just coming back into existence, so Cell Phones are just coming back into vogue (Think the Mid-90s, only with better cell phones.). The culture has gone into a Retro-1980s look, with "Thug" being the "Wiz" thing at the moment (The first Terminator.), and "Tribal" motifs are very popular as well, sometimes combining the two into "Urban Tribal" styling that is popular with Shadowrunners and Shadowrunner-Wannabes.

Racism is still heavily apparent and apparently, with crosses burning to illuminate hooded Humanis members, and burning Humanis members illuminating Sons of Sauron. Infrastructure is still recovering from The Crash, and only the rich can rely on any essential services aside from the fire department and garbage collection. In the Middle-Class, Buildings are either newly built and in semi-OK condition (Aside from being built cheaply and corruptly by Mob- Connected Construction Companies, but out of newer, tougher material), or are older buildings that are falling apart. Lower-Class and Barrens just have old buildings, with the Barrens never receiving any new construction.

CredSticks come in various flavors, including the Registered CredStick, which is your wallet, your ID, and probably your car and house keys. Cash is still around in various forms, with Certified CredSticks being an option as well. Countries still print their own money (But I run it that way in 2070 as well.),

Data Trails (At least when it comes to purchases and such) are much harder to track, which makes SINs last longer, but they're also more expensive as Crash 2.0 and SIN Amnesty hasn't happened yet to open holes in the SIN network. However, you can actually live without a SIN as long as you stay away from higher-end stores and "random" police/security ID checks.

The big mob groups are still around, with the Vory and Triads starting to make headway into Seattle's Mafia and Yakuza heavy groups. The AmerInadian "Mob" is only a rumor, but one that's believed to exist because, well, Las Vegas.

Beer is synthetic, coffee is mostly made of soy, and old folks aren't complaining about how bad things have gotten from the "Old Days", but complimenting on how good things are turning out. This should tell you something.

Yeah, I find it sorta funny how my baby boomer uncle fervently believes the crime problem is worse than ever and that it's all my generation's fault. It's like he's conveniently forgotten that the 25 year span from from 1970 to 1995 ever happened. Statistically you could make a strong argument (I'm 28) that my age group has "underachieved" during our collective criminal prime.

The '70s? Hell. The '60s! Social Disorder was the morals of the day!

'Course, he might have been there, so he probably doesn't remember them.

The '60s gets a bum rap because governments favor an unfortunate rhetorical trick that equivocates the massing of people (and thus, the potential of violence) with violent acts. The '60s was a dramatic time, but the '70s and '80s had more deaths with far less justification.

And crime is crime is crime.

Kent State anyone? OK, that was in 1970... But still, part of the '60s culture.

But, yeah, you're right. The '70s and '80s were hard. War Fatigue for Civilians, I guess.

Crime is crime, sure, but a lot of what happened in the '60s wasn't criminal but was treated as such by the general public if not always the government. I'm not trying to paint this as good hippies vs. evil government or anything here, but the fact of the matter is that the ideological lines that were drawn made it easy to paint people with the same brush-- and that went for both sides of those movements. To touch back on the Kent State fiasco for a second, I would point out that Governor Jim Rhodes later claimed the protesters were a militant group on the same level as the SA. I don't want to minimize what was happening, but that's a strong way to characterize all or even most of the Viet Nam/Cambodia invasion protesters. The '60s were marked by an awful, awful lot of fear. Which, really, is understandable, since people with causes you don't agree with are a lot harder to come to terms with than some drunk kid who steals a car as a lark.

Anyway though, not shadowrun related, so I'll shut up now.

"The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are."
- H. L. Mencken
* Smart Set Magazine (December 1919)

Why do you want to get "old school"? What kind of world do you want to play in?

I'd like to live in a world where problems like mine...

Oh, wait, you meant what Shadowrun World, never mind.

I'd like to slap a giant "In My Opinion" sign on your post. I disagree with Mardrax almost entirely but that is entirely my own opinion. What really matters is the intent of the OP. What is he trying to do? Is he trying to capture the exact look and feel of '80s cyberbunk nostalgia. If that is the case then I actually agree with Mardrax and he should probably just run 1st edition Shadowrun. If the OP's intent is to roll back the clock on the setting metaplot then very few changes need be made to the actual SR4A rules.

Most of the changes that would need to be made involve just leaving out elements that come along later, like technomancers and the SURGE'd. Very much my own opinion, but I'd retcon the Matrix of 2050 to make it a reasonable mix of wired and wireless systems, depending on the kind of networks involved. Overall, I'm of the opinion that the tech for Shadowrun has always undershot the mark, even when they were projecting from the late '80s. Much of SR4A technology for 2072, especially communications and computing, is probably going to be reached decades before 2072. Therefore I think you'd feel totally justified making as much use of wireless as you think appropriate in 2050.

If you want to rekindle the difference between Hermetic magicians and Shamans, then it is a pretty easy fix to perform. First, you limit characters to those two traditions. You limit the hermetics to Binding and you limit the shaman to Summoning to re-create the spirit restrictions of old editions. If you're feeling saucy, you can re-institute the Domain restrictions for shaman summoning.

Bio- and cyber-wear are, frankly, not radically different in 4th edition compared to previous editions. In my opinion, very little need be changed in this arena. You might want to remove the nano-ware if you think it's unreasonable for that to have been developed by 2050.

Most of the setting "feel" of 2050 can be had without changing rules. You'll have Lone Star in Seattle. You'll have the Renraku Arcology under construction. You'll have Fuchi and the rest of the old AAA lineup. You'll have the old Tir Tairngire and oppressed San Francisco. All of these setting elements of 2050 do not require rules changes to make them work. If these setting elements are what attract you to running a game set in 2050 then you should have no problem making 4th edition rules work for your game.

By your logic, you should vastly extrapolate on 2072 tech as well, then. Which you're free to, but that means you're not playing Shadowrun per se, but rather a setting based on Shadowrun, running under the Shadowrun rules system, or likely a variation thereof.
Which really doesn't matter one bit, as long as you're having fun.
Fact remains though that it's not the Shadowrun setting. My opinion has nothing to do with what the Shadowrun setting is. Canon Shadowrun lore does. And canon Shadowrun lore says Shadowrun looks like people in the late 80's have tried to imagine 60ish years ahead, and have let the setting that was imagined take its course through the years, with changes in vision having their effect on the setting as it progressed over the next 20 years, but never ever (to my knowledge) retconning anything.


Sci Fi either undershooting the mark, or overshooting it by coming up with things that are impossible according to current knowledge of physics/chemistry are a hallmark of the genre. We really aren't able to look far beyond things hat are being discovered now, or able to judge their ramifications. Let alone look beyond discoveries that could be termed as singularities. Most people who have invented technology we're using today would never have dreamed of uses they're being put to and would probably have laughed had you told them.
This is one of the reasons a company like Google is so fond of their Labs, who are in turn fond of letting other developpers have free reign with their products. Creativity and innovation are systems of generally increasing returns, given a larger base of entities adding to it.

In case the OP is still around...

Anyway OP you might want to say more about why you want to turn back the clock. I actually run campaigns like that for a number of reasons. However one of them isn't so the decker can spend an hour in real time to shut down the elevators and if the character loses heir deck the player would probalby be better off having them off themselves to rebuild with a new one.

So I heavily incorporate SR4 hacking rules. That said you could still have deckers for the flavor, just with SR4 rules and much cheaper decks, you could even go wired (actually the AR only over wireless might be good, making them jack in on the real systems).

Anyway the reasons I go back are because I like thinning up the initial purchase options. It's great for keeping players greedy and interested if bioware is lurking in the future. Ditto for some magical stuff. You'll actually find them striving to be on the bleeding edge, as opposed to starting out with .01 essence or initiating after the first session or two.

I also really liked some of the old art, and the setting is easier to work with in some ways, and bug city is just great.

Up to you on the cyberpunk angle. I dunno though. At least from second edition and on, it SR has never been pushing the 1980s/CP2020 style over substance, fight the man, save the homeless from his poverty, save the wage slave from his servitude, live in a coffin motel and blow all your cash on drugs and sex stuff.

Despite the mohawks, in many ways the Shadowrunner is the Cyberpunks worst nightmare. Actually, an interesting run might be one where the team gets call to shut down a riot that's in the process of getting violent due to some rocker with a silver hand rilling them up.

Or, if nobody would get that reference, maybe have the riot be something about rent, and the songs something about a cow, and now they're mooing. Butter shut those freaks down fast.

The executives at Arasaka would thank you, if you were able to solve this little problem before it got out of hand...

Esh. At least somebody got it

Though if that has fallen into obscurity, it actually make for an interesting run. Just do it as a session, and than leave a CP2020 book lying around some day near that only player we all have who just can't resist picking up and reading game books. Than let it all sink in.

Technically, SR1 had the equivalent of an Otaku/Technomancer. My first character could run the matrix "Naked" ... i.e. without a deck. In fact, Dodger is doing just that on the front cover of SR1.

Alt is one scary hacker.... "Mistress, I Live. How may I serve You?"
What a hell of a Program that would make in Shadowrun... a Very Scary Program, but WOW...

You know I never did read SR1 though I have some books from that era.

Any other flavor elements that are now missing?

Off the top of my head I think rules for the gear, instruments, and game mechanics of being a rock band were active back then, along with rules for playing some of the sports like Urban Brawl (though that would take forever to play out using modern rules).

I also get the impressing that SR2 at least was kinda dingier. The art featured more rats crawling around in the background, graffiti, buildings that have been around since now and are getting worn in 2050, and stuff like that. Even "nice" neighborhoods were like that as soon as you stepped out of your front door.

And I think they pushed the "soy" stuff more. You had to be up quite a ways in the lifestyles before you started regularly eating regular food. They played up themes like that.

Major Amer-Indian themes and Urban Tribals, IIRC. Part of the Punk culture and the Balkenization of the USA that happened.

Did not that involve a very specific piece of cyberware, a "program carrier" or something like that ?

I suppose they have let the Amer-indian stuff slip in the fluff.

Yeah. I don't remember the exact name, but that sounds about right. Since there was no wireless access, they needed something to connect the brain to the Matrix. Its the little prongs coming out of Dodger's wrist on the front cover of SR1. Why out of the wrist like spurs? I suspect an attempt at some kind of coolness factor.

Personally, I'd just say "The Year is 2050", rather than "The Year is 2070", and be done with it. No rules changes are necessary, especially if your players aren't very keen on splitting hairs over edition differences.