Reading these boards have draw my attention to a few different "playing styles", usually in reference to Street Samurai and the like, but also includes other archetypes. Unfortunately, I'm not on the same sheet of music as far as the descriptions go.

So, can some one give me a short list and quick description of various playing styles? The playing styles I have heard are Pink Mohawk and Black Trench Coat, but I know there are more.

Pink Mohawk = Over the top outrageous gaming (elf ninja strippers, bazooka clowns etc)
Trenchcoat = Matrix style gunplay and 'cool' gameplay somewhat serious
Dark Future= Using RAW. with RAW you are basically playing a futuristic version of 1984 where EVERYTHING is monitored (or perhaps a place where the Matrix and London surveillance of today is mixed).
Normal = My prefered gameplay. No ultra surveillance and a smatter of pink mohawk to make the game fun and not all dark and gritty where EVERYONE wears dark sunglasses and dark trenchcoats (like sending nastygram filled with bees to your archnemesis)...

In a Pink Mohawk game, a big gun is good, and a bigger gun is even better. The PC's actions have little consequences, the cops won't get them if the aren't REALLY stupid.

The trechcoat style is sometimes referred to as "Mirrored Shades" and involves more planning and more consequences, like The Jopp said.

I normally run with what I call "Cyber Noir", where good guys are few and far between, but do exist, corruption has gotten ahead and settled in, and the heroes have feet of clay. The phrase used is "In traditional fiction, the right guy does the right thing at the right time ... in noir, one of those is wrong."

Streets are darker, rain is common, and it feels like everyone's on the take.

I guess my prefered style is something of a hybrid between Pink Mohawk and Mirror shades. Call it Gonzo.

Gonzo=Over the top characters. (Four armed surge gunbunnies, 13yr old super genius hackers, The worlds greatest sniper, Metasapients recycling drones, Amnesiac free spirits.) Then the characters are played straight with an eye to the "reality" of their stats and the consequences of their actions.

tho I still haven't gotten into a Shadowrun game yet I would say I´m kinda more Pink Mohawk then trenchcoat...but then again my top #1 comicbook "heroes" are the Punisher and Deadpool, kinda gets the idea what kind of character I like to play X)

What's been put down for both Pink Mohawk and Black Shades is about what they are. But what I notice is that they are much more how the players view the game then how the total group plays the game.

Example: We have a few characters in our group that fall into the Pink Mohawk range of play. They bring it loud and play it loud. They don't care and pay no never mind to consequences for their actions. They shoot first and shoot later. But then you have the 'professionals' that get the job done clean, efficiently, with no loose ends. They wrap up all data trails, keep their shell casings, and make sure that nothing can be traced back to them.

And then you have the people that fall in a scale of those extremes. I think of Pink Mohawk as being on the left end, and Black Shades being on the right. A very left attitude is bringing a Panther Cannon to lunch and generally wasting ammo on the cops, the pedestrians, and anyone that gets in your way. A very right approach means that most of the game is planning, back office deals, calls to make cover ups, and then only about two seconds of action. Then, everything else is wrap up and securing the run.

So really, it's more of a scale in my opinion then it is a full game style. People will play both extremes at one point or another, setting the game's average at something that's doable.

i prefer electric blue or toxic green mohawks myself. pink is just not my colour.
Black Tranchcoat and Mirror-Shades are fine and dandy, but there comes a time, when you have to be a sourly troll and say"Gimme that fully automatic shotgun, i have had enough"

I rank them as:
Pink Mohawk: Full out Punk, the good guys never win, the bad guys are worse than the sociopaths, and over-the-top action is how you do things. Bring lots of drugs and even more ammo!

Mirrorshades: Far more professional and strict. Lots of planning, detail, contacts used, preparation, and use of the mind. Corruption is strife, however, and unless you've gone on a double-digit murder spree of security and police officers, freedom is only a bribe to the right person away.

Trenchcoat: A combination of the two. You start out Mirrorshades, but when/if something goes wrong, the coats come off and the 'hawks come out, complete with Gatling Guns and PACs.

But...that's, like, every Shadowrun game ever.

So I'm accurate then.

yes, for someone who never actually played shadowrun, you are pretty much spot on . .
*runs for his worthless life*

That's pretty accurate, yeah.

My players generally lean towards the Trenchcoat side of things. Usually it's all clean and pristine, but occasionally they end up going after some contact who fucked 'em over and hung them out to dry with a pair of bolt cutters, intent on mailing his nose to his momma.

I've GMed and written for the game. I know a thing or two.

i know.
and i still pity you for never getting to play yourself.
you should try it in a game where bull masters.
and watch him squirm trying to keep you under control ^^

Cyberpirate- More globetrotting than a usual game with a lot more burning and pillaging. One step ahead of the law the whole time, ends with a bang.

Pink mohawk and black trench coat are the ends of the scale, so neither is that practical. A pink mohawk game with no consequences or depth gets boring after a while - you might as well simply play an FPS if that's what you're after. One problem with a pink mohawk game is that Shadowrun is set up so there are consequences for going wild. Completely ignoring them is not only playing that FPS, but playing it in god mode. Reallllly boring. The other problem is the mechanics of the game - it is easy to get one-shot kills, and a lot harder to defend against them. Shadowrun is a pretty tactical game. If you go in guns blazing, your characters typically won't last terribly long - unless the GM is letting you rip through sub-par opposition all of the time.

But on the other hand, black trenchcoat can get a bit mind-numbing - who wants to waste a lot of time planning every last detail (some people do like that)? The biggest problem is that if you truly fully use all of the means that are out there to track or defend against the runners, the whole premise of the game (freelance expeditors who are ghosts in the system) flat out doesn't work. They will get nabbed the first job they do.

I like a bit of a mix of the two. Have a game that resembles an action movie more than real life, but, although there is "rule of cool" and things are overall more anarchic, there are still consequences, and still some lines that you cross at your peril. Legwork and a bit of planning are needed to do the job, but you can come up with a relatively simple plan and hit the ground running with it, then lay low for a bit waiting for the heat to die down. Use the Runners Companion mitigating flavor text for the surveillance society - there is a combination of a data glut, frequently forged (and therefore not very trustworthy) information, and data balkanization between paranoid corporate competitors. Within the game, you can also have variance among the PCs. Maybe one is a former company man, a cold hard pro, while the mage is a comparatively naive eco-shaman, and the adept is an ork ganger who is streetwise but flashy and flamboyant. My favorite shadowrun teams aren't all pros or all punks, but an interesting mix of the two.

Personally I'm a fan of Pink Trenchcoat.
(Go on, think of Morpheus in a pink trenchcoat. Do it. Now describe how that feels. That's right. Seriously silly.)
It's a style characterized by being over the top, when it's needed, subtle when it's appropriate, meticulous planning that gets thrown out the window the moment the GM throws a stiff breeze at it, and big guns (well, ok, medium guns, but $400,000 worth of ammo in 12 seconds).
Consequences when you done gone fucked up, or when the plot requires it. Success is generally determined by whether or not you got paid. Things might get dicey and you might blow up a fireworks factory once in a while, but the corps won't ever trace you back to your safehouse if you did the job you were paid to do Typically not a lot of extras (as sticking around tends to be more risk than reward), but sometimes you can get clever.

I'd equate it to Liberal Crime Squad.
In LCS, there's two ways you can play:
1) The way that it was intended (buying a liberal gun, some liberal ammo, and liberally spraying liberal lead into conservative flesh) and getting yourself killed inside a week when the CCS rolls a tank through your front door. This would be pink mohawk.
2) Winning (be charismatic, recruit followers, abduct high ranking conservatives, brainwashing them into sleeper agents, and defending yourself against all crimes in court to a standing ovation and an acquittal of all charges ("murder, arson, and jaywalking" of course)). This would be pink trenchoat.

I think the OP has his definitions of "pink mohawk" and "black trenchcoat/mirrored shades" down if he cuts out the various prejudices out of the answers he got.

I run a black trenchcoat side-of-the-spectrum cyber noir type of game. There is not a huge emphasis on planning, as some have suggested of the style; just there are consequences for needless murder of CorpSec mooks, liberal use of grenades, blowing up buildings, shooting police or innocent bystanders, and you wanna think twice before you knife that made man to death ...

I haev never really gotten to play the over the top games, not in a scale of firepower but of characters.

I want the 6 limbed electronic junkie who's indebted to Mitsuhama with a dead end day job.

I want the Drone carrier AI that consists of a fleet of 14 minidrones and a Tower drone carrier trying just to survive and improve his flying 'home'.

I want full borg human that no longer trust flesh and reminds people of a swiss army knife with mental issues.

I want the adept troll knife tosser that can throw a pillow through a brick wall.

And finally I want the pacifist hobo troll with maximized mystic armor and insane body stats who just wants his hobo friends to not get hurt.

This one made me smile. I want that one too.

-D

Well, he IS possible.

Maximize strength, add missile mastery and all bells and whistles added to that (Metagenic improvement and bioware) and he would have a STR of 14 and with Power Throw it went to 18. Missile mastery gives ANY object STR/2 P damage as thrown damage. He is also a pathetic hacker but no one disagrees witha troll at STR14 and killing hands...

So, fluffy pillow becomes anti anything weapon at 9P AP-

I call him Sandman...

This is where I stand. I like having a mix of characters in a group, but I agree going too far to one side or the other can really dampen the fun/make it boring(for me, again, others may like it fine one way or the other.) I do like playing more weird characters than normal(a Bear shifter with Shift Elf, a Fomori with Elongated Legs and biosculpting to make him look like a giant human with horns, a huge demon-elf guy with cyber demon legs), but at the same time, I do like some of the more undercover and mirror-shadesy aspects and having to use wide mixes of skills and the like, as well as varied other character types(a young troll hacker, a dwarf magician/investigator). I'm essentially all over the place with moods and the like, and even power levels(we typically like a cut above average-750 Karma level, with races costing, but sometimes I like 400 BP or even something like 320 BP once in a great while, I suspect the latter I like using as numbers exercises.) I also like it when sometimes it pays to be subtle, other times loud, and I do like consequences for being stupid, but not breathing wrong.

Then again, power levels/BP and Karma aren't necessarily linked to the Mohawk-Mirrorshades scale; you can have very high level Mirrorshades, or 300 BP Pink Mohawk-if anything, it's easier, IMO, to play a Mohawk game with LOWER power since all you need is ''Destroy Stuff Skill, Item In Which To Destroy With, Loud and Cheap Cyber, Go''. Mirrorshades usually requires a wide variety of skills spread around several people, subtle but good bioware which is expensive, and wanting backup on both-you probably don't want to play a one-trick pony in a pure mirrorshades game).

Yes, I can see how games can have a hard time findinga place for the Nartaki X6 arms with elongated limbs, Setae hands, monkey grip and insectoid features who claims to NOT be from Chicago and is NOT an insect spirit host with Astral Hazing and Bad Vibe...

But I'd really like to play that dude...

What about the full borg elf, with flying modular cyber limb drones? "Name's Tinker Toy." Each limb is also a gun.

How about the troll logic 1 hacker? *PUNCH SERVER, GRAB PARTS* "Dis hard drive, me think. Crack open later."

Then there's Bear Who Walks Through Walls.

I prefer to play Bob From Accounting. Ex-corper who got burned to cover his bosses ass, so now he works the shadows instead, putting his massive stack of financial knowledge and hideous knowsoft collection to use by arranging for his team to steal all sorts of things the corps don't really even bother to inventory, like a dozen pallets of nutri-soy, and selling them in the barrens at a markup.

That IS my adept throwing troll. He's got logic 1 and spoof hacking skills of 3 or so. Enough to get by, and not very smart.

Fair. Just that this troll hacker idea my friend has would be filling the role of "hacker" to the T while still being as dumb as a pile of bricks.
That is, not a throwing adept or anything special in a firefight (capable, but not special).

Sounds like my Accountant From Hell build.

Me, I want to make a Pixie Puncher.

Any style really requires a homogeneous group though. You can have 4 guys wanting trenchcoat, but if there's one pink mohawk in there, the planning gets fucked. The Mohawker doesn't want any consequences for going way over the top, and the trenchcoats demand the mohawk gets smacked down, to validate their own style of planning and legwork. In a group like that, there really is no perfect balance. The hawker is always going to want less consequence, and the coats are always going to want more.

As a Gm for just such a group, it gives me a giant headache working like that. Constantly. To the point of rage. I think it'll also lead to some of the most fun though, as the two playstyles clash and the world around them reacts.

I don't have any such problems.
I let the sneaky guys try to shmooze and sneak their asses in and out of wherever . .
And when(note, not if) they fuck up, i start to kill stuff to clear a path out for them . . .

As a GM I try to make totally clear what the larger setting is going to be in a game. The consequences of any actions are spelled out as coherently as possible, and I use the player’s contacts to place much emphasis on learning/knowing exactly what to expect in regards to both opposition and collateral damage.
More importantly, I always give the players a choice in settings, for example: Los Angeles vs. Manhattan, or Eastern Hong Kong (corp suburbs) vs. Kowloon City (lawlessness and blighted).
That way the players decide on their own how they want to approach the game, and have no excuse for doing “stupid” acts relative to the chosen setting.

What normally happens at that point is the Mohawk gets two in the back of the head from one (or more) of the TrenchCoats.

quick question:
so what would you call a style where none of the characters are street sams?
like what if a team is all mystics- shamans, adepts, etc.?

would you call that style Spook N' Spell?

All Mages: Manabombs / Spirits Galore
Adepts: The Invisible Killing Hands

Actually, I call that Friday Night, since no one really goes for the tech. Any hacking we have is all Technomancer and all combat is either spells, Killing Hands, or a gun adept. We actually have a mundane. No magic and no technology. All guns, drugs, and Australian accent.

Our home group started out with a team of runners helping out a gang clearing territory in LA. It tended towards the pink mohawk end of things.

We graduated to a team that is more along the lines of Canray's definition of trenchcoat. All of us like the fact that this time we spend more time on legwork than wetwork. But with a trio made up of a combat hacker, a mage good at summoning and a free spirit (me), one could describe our group as D+SGIF: drones and spirits go in first. Matrix and contact work found our target, spirit scouting got the layout, and then three of us plus assorted mechanical and spirit allies flooded the opposition. Well, when I say "three of us," I actually mean I went in with the lackies while my buddies stayed outside directing them.

This was the GM's first foray in that role. Next time, I think he will be less inclined to think, "Maybe these NPCs are too tough."

Of course the mohawker was designed to take on an armoured battalion (because that's how he rolls) so he turns around sneezes and kills the other pc's.

Generally true. SR3 trolls rocking 18+ armor and enough willpower to shrug off spells, go.

shrugging off spells was nearly impossible in SR3 too.
18 Armor is impossible too under SR3 rules. Without magical help.
BODY on the other Hand CAN be gotten to 18. That's Cyber-Augmented though and counts neither for poison nor disease . .

Like I said. Troll. Voodoo phys/mage.

One thing to have in mind is that the Seattle plex is big enough to handle either end.

If your operating in the corp zones downtown and the A level districts, the shades better be on or your in trouble fast.

Head to the z-zones, or onto the highways at night, and your likely to find day-glo mohawks.

As for Noir, that is outside of either. That is about the futility. Sure, you take down that exec dumping buggy simsense cum BTL into the zones. But your only satisfaction is seeing him carted away. There will be no big shakeup over it, and your only refuge will be your mindbender of choice in the long run.

I'm guessing you can use the setting to run survival horror or mystery/investigation campaigns, not just crime/cyberpunk with the shades and trenchcoats and mohawks.

By the way, when I saw the topic title, especially the "and... wah?", ork WAAAGHs from Warhammer 40k immediately came to mind. But I guess that's covered under pink mohawk. Could be amusing if a Brittish ork warrior subculture started using terms like dakka and choppy, not to mention blowing up everything in sight just on principle.

Arcology shutdown demonstrated that very well

Yep. My group in Deadlands: Hell On Earth was pretty Mirrorshades/Black Trenchcoat.

Then I got one of them to sign a deal with pure evil.

I think it's better to have a character who can do Pink Mohawk when the situation is called for and Black Trenchcoat.

Sometimes blowing shit up really is a better overall solution.

My group blew up a fireworks factory once.

Admittedly we were being paid to eliminate their latest R&D project...and we set it on fire (which didn't do much, actually)...and shot it up an elevator shaft...and into the air...which aerosolized it...and then it burned......and it was explosive.....

We preferred to steal things that someone had really good reasons to not officially inventory, and also would fail to report their sudden absence to the police. But yeah, same general effect.

That's the ticket. We went with stuff like nutrisoy and office supplies specifically because they'd write it off and likely assume someone inside their organization sold it black market.

OoOoO! I LIKE IT! Don't forget the Ork whores in front of the filthy Stuffer Shack on the corner... very important.


Couldn't possibly agree more. Bravo, chummer. I'm particularly fond of the kidnapped-corp-kid-pressed-into-simsense-slavery-and-escaped-into-the-shadows concept.


I empathize. Sadly, but I empathize.


LOL!!!!!!

I admit I'm a huge fan of Mirrored shades... but then again I think I'm one of precious few who loved the first Bourne film, but hated the rest. I'm also a fan of 1984, which, in a way, is what SR is all about. That's what hackers are for, right? To shut all those cameras off?

The Accountant is precious, too... after all, soycaf swilling shadowrunners would see that off-the-books crate of crayons as a bonus... though Mr. Johnson might find it a bit... unprofessional.