My search fu must suck, because I can't find any threads about preferences for introducing noobs to the SR style.

I've got a group of long-time nerds who have spent the majority of their nerd-hoods doing swords n' monsters, and I want to get them hooked on Black Mirrorshades.


So.

Movies
Books
Anime
Western Animation
Comics
Webcomics
Manga
YouTube
Some other medium I've overlooked

I had a little list put together, but I've gone and fed it to my dog. With a couple of minutes of digging:

Blade Runner (movie)
Neuromancer (book)
Strange Days (movie)
Sneakers (movie)
Ocean's Eleven (new movie)
Ronin (movie)
Heat (movie)


Okay, so a bunch of those are more "This is what a shadowrunner does" than "Black Mirrorshades" but it's at least a jumping off point.

Anybody got anything specifically BM? Oh, and be as specific as possible so I can find it.

Your choices seem to be movies of people doing complicated plans. Here are a few things that might get them interested in the setting.

Johnny Mnemonic is not that great a movie but it is fairly shadowrun. It has a cool depiction of a monofilament whip. And the plot is fairly shadowrun too. Guy basically has a cyberdeck in his brain he uses to physically smuggle data, and lots of people come out of the woodwork to try to slice off his head. Good times.

Battle Angel Alita is a manga which is awesome. It is set way in the future but it definitely has the distopian squallier part of cyberpunk in spades. Having the visual aspect gives something that books lack and it could get someone into the cyberware is coool mindset. There is an Anime of it, and it is ok but nowhere as good as the manga.

Ashen Victor is another manga by the same guy that did Battle Angel Alita. It is short, grim, and uplifting in its own way.

Snowcrash is probably the second best known cyberpunk book. It fairly pink mohawk but really you are just trying to get them hooked on the idea that hunting down info, clandestine meetings, and mysterious plots are fun.

Ghost in the Shell is good; either the movie or the show should work.

Don't forget Burn Notice.

The TV show Leverage.

Cyber City Oedo is very shadowrun: lots of 'ware and adept powers and weaponry you'll recognise.

Check out this thread for more ideas than you could ever use.

And check out the link in my sig for tips on how to find stuff with our crappy search engine. There are in deed many, many theads on this topic.

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (Film)
Snatch (Film)
Hustle (TV Series)
The Sting (Film)
The Italian Job (Film)
The Italian Job (The New One) (Film)
Ocean's 11 (Film)
The Special's "Ghost Town" (Song)
Ocean's 11 (The New One, And It's Sequels) (Film(s))
Reservoir Dogs (Film)
The Day of the Jackal (Film)

These don't necessarily have the Cyberpunk genre to them, but they have the thriller feel that works well with Shadowrun (well, except "Ghost Town" but that works as a song of dystopia).

Well, stuff that has some relevance for SR...

Series:
Black Lagoon
Leverage
Burn Notice
Ghost in the Shell

Movies:
Minority Report
Soylent Green
The Warriors
Escape From New York
Blade Runner
Akira
Sneakers
Clear and Present Danger
Hackers
Equilibrium
The Bourne Trilogy
xXx
Italian Job
Collateral
Munich
Body of Lies
Eagle Eye
District 9
RED

I am surprised that Babylon, A.D. hasn't made this list, or the one in the linked archive as well. It may not have all of the high tech stuff (other than in the ridiculous ending bit), but for the most part, Vin Diesel's character is a solo freelancer who is on a shit run to escort a HPT - and he plays it to the T. I usually show this to my non-shadowrun-playing friends to get them to understand the mentality of a runner.

Overall, it's not the best movie ever, but I think it does a great job of conveying the overall feel of Shadowrun (again, less some of the tech / awakened bits), and more importantly how a runner thinks and acts. Just my two pence..

-Thal`en

Edit: On further thought, Lucy Liu's character and the target herself could both be considered awakened characters, depending on how much you want to stretch things.

I am always adding "Outlaw Star" (anime) to the mix. While other shown often are better capturing a single element of shadowrun, Outlaw Star IS pretty much Shadowrun IN SPACE.

First the story is about a bunch of misfits trying to do jobs on the side until hitting it big (with background hooks and such).

You have: Mystical Adepts, Twilight Suzuka for example, who is fighting with a Bokken (wooden training sword) having no troubles shooting shockwaves and blocking bullets.
Weird Metaraces... i mean Aliens: Shapeshifting Ctarl-Ctarl's or a mindcontroling Cactus trying to conquer earth, but testing first by DOMINATING YOU TO BUY ICE-CREAM
The Space-Pirates use "Taoistic magic", and Gene himself shoots a magic gun using his lifeforce.
Cyborgs and artificial beings run around too, of course.
There is hacking and rigging. EVERYTHING. Just that it is in space and SLIGHTLY more over the top *g*.

But yeah, we already had this. Great older links.

Theoretically, you could Shadowrun in space. I hear the orbital colonies are filling out nicely.

Johnson: "Gentlemen, the job is simple. Our rivals over at Mitsuhama have some sensitive data on our operations stored in their secure deposit box on the Zurich Orbital. All you need to do is break in and erase the hard copy."

Runner 1: "We're gonna be rich!"
Runner 2: "We're gonna be dead!"

Wolfgar- Hold it, didnt i run this as the last mission of my doc holliday character?
Consul Black- No that was an Ares space station and you blew it up as you left in ALL the escape pods

Strange Days is on the top of my list for Shadowrun esq movies. BTL junkies, rockers, conspiracies, and more.

I'm glad Strange Days got a mention.
I would suggest:
Serrogates
Repo Men
Black Rain
Ghost Dog - The Way of the Samurai
and...believe it or not...Repo is pretty good for a future dystopian genetic opera.
Also, Paris Hilton's face falls off.

That last part made the whole movie for me!'

...

OK, being a Goth Opera also helped.

Ghost Dog was pretty terrible, but was a good portrayal of how a street samurai is supposed to be played. People use the term street sam synonymously with "razor" or "gun bunny" or whatever flavor combat specialist, but the term had very a specific connotation back in the SR1 days.

I actually LIKED Ghost Dog, for specifically that reason.

As far as anime goes, I'd suggest Bubblegum Crisis.

And CanRay, speaking of Goth, OP wanted music? Sisters of Mercy comes to mind; in particular I'd have the OP look up the videos for "This Corrosion" and "Lucretia, My Reflection".

"Lucretia, My Reflection" and "This Corrosion" spring to mind immediately, and what little plot there is to "Dominion" seems appropriate to Shadowrun.

I've always imagined the Barrens looking something like the set to "This Corrosion" myself.

Bauhaus' discography has some excellent pieces for Shadowrun mood music, as well - "Bela Lugosi's Dead" works wonders as an ambient track.

That's exactly what "This Corrosion" did for me, too. And you're damn right about the Bauhaus.

Don't know if your players have the time but, I would suggest seeing if they can watch a Let's Play(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NQcbY2pasI) or play the old Shadowrun game for the Sega Genesis. That being said I find the Deus Ex games to be good inspiration especially the trailers for Human Revolution, the music from the games and trailer is good also.

This is an odd suggestion, but you could eat like you live in the Shadowrun universe. Quorn is a meat substitute made from mycoprotein purified from fungi. Various fluff pieces mention vat grown proteins with flavors added with an eyedropper. Thats pretty much what this is. Textured vegetable protein meat and cheese substitutes are all over the place too.

A piece that isn't out yet but shows a lot of possibility: Hobo With A Shotgun!

You mean: Didn't have a wide realese yet. I have seen it... umm...

Absolutely disgustingly gory.


Yeah.... pretty shadowrun... just a bit too much graphic violence. Yeah, REALLY.

And Shadowrun has people screaming out "YOUR MOM'S A CLASSY LADY!" while chopping at them with Monofilament Chainsaw Bayonets and rainbows shoot out?

Eh, there is violence and than there is VIOLENCE.

And then there's Violence the RPG.

COME HERE AND LET ME GIVE YOU A BIG HUG

HEAT...

Leon,

Not cyberpunk, but badass professional criminals nonetheless.

I've used both as descriptions for a Movie-Nerd in my group, he was very happy for me to suggest it.

HEAT also shows why you don't deal with nonprofessionals. And what to do when you do have them. Unless your campaign is Pink Mohawk, that is...

I am going to offer Music suggestions:

Ministry- Psalm 69 (album) and The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste
Nine Inch Nails
Under Midnight (I know, it's an obscure Christian band from the early 90s, but both albums were cyberpunk concept albums and fairly decent.)
Klank
Celldweller
Brainchild
Miami Vice Soundtrack- don't laugh, it has a couple tracks that fit the 'scummy' mood of a 'runner's life.


books:
Gibson's Sprawl trilogy
Snow Crash
George Alec Effinger's Marid Audran series (When Gravity Fails...)

Films
Escape from New York
Terminator
Blade Runner
Repo Man (emilio estevez)
Repo Men


TV:
Max Headroom
TekWar
Wild Palms