Hello everyone
So im new at running a Shadowrun campaign and im struggling with the setting. My games are usually small scale and not world throttling/save the world kinda stuff. Im currently using Seattle as i have the book and people have told me is a vanilla shadowrun city but my players keep raising questions about the setting i cant really answer and i wanna flesh the setting for them.

For example why does the runners have to meet the johnson if the fixer is suppose to handle everything?

I get the whole "Corporations are mini countries" angle in Shadowrun, also the corporate "nationalism" that they do in things like the arcology but what about "neutral" places that dont belong to any corp? The Seattle book mention shopping malls that have stores of multiples corps there, how does that work? Do all employees are indoctrinated wageslaves?

I get the idea that for the average wageslave raise into a corp a shadowrunner/sinless is an undesirable person at best or a terrorist at worse but the fluff sells me plenty of examples of them interacting outside of work. How that works exactly? I mean, wouldn't it hurt your professional image if one hang out with member of ISIS on the weekends? If having a criminal SIN ruins your life in such a way why would any employee (aside from the high end) risk themselves hanging out with shadowrunners or even in the case of the seattle book plenty of example of SINner legal employees who do ilegal things (like, a body+ shop that does illegal cyberware).

And do every SINNER is a wageslave? Because from what i gather from the Seattle book there is plenty of independent legal business around (like high end restaurants/spa/talismonger shop/etc) so i don't get the whole "We shadowrun to escape the corps" and the "SINner/SINless" separation when SINNER exist outside of the corps, i wanna sell my players the idea that sinless live hellish lives and thats why they run but even the books suggest that the barrens have their own apartments, shops and everything they need to live.

For example in the last session the party refuse the job offered because of the time constrains (it was a Season 4 mission) and decides that they had 10k saved and with their lifestyle they could survive 6+ months so i ran slice of life with the pcs. One of the PC decided to date a MIT&T troll student and another player who apparently is a Shadowrun fan called bullshit because "why would a SINNER associate herself with a SINless and that no SINner would be confortable with the dangerous live of a shadowrunner"

What advice or novel or source book would you suggest me to read? I tried reading the "Never deal with a dragon novel" but it didn't help as it was very atypical. Or at least it felt that the character were all exceptions to the norm.

Thanks

A book that should help quite a bit is Attitude, from SR4 I think. It would answer some of your questions (and more).

Welcome to the shadows, chummer.

Shadowrun has been around for quite some time, and there are now as many visions of the universe than there are GMs. And this is also the case for the authors. Basically, I like to consider three main approach:

1. The Technothriller: For some people, Shadowrun is more or less our world with magic, cyber and somes changes here and there. Megacorps are like Google or Samsung and people live more or less the way they do today. Shadowrunners and SINless are just criminals living in the fringe of society.

2. The 80s Cyberpunk: The world is dominated by megacorps, SINners are mostly corporate drones, wageslaves who sold their humanity and freedom in exchange for the relative security and illusion of happiness the corp provide. The world is a fucked-up place and things will probably get worse, but nobody cares. Shadowrunners and SINlesses are the only free people, the remnant of humanity, even if it gets consumed by drugs and cyber and live in hellholes.

3. The Postcyberpunk: The world is dominated by corps, but it's ok. They have some dark aspects but they provide structure and even some good to the world. Tech is solving problems, even if it create others. The SINners are a bit formatted by the system, but their life is not that bad. Cyber doesn't eat your soul, it defines who you are. Shadowrunners and SINlesses are people who decided to live differently. They're not living in the cracks of the society, they live in their own society, opened up by the tech or societal changes.

So the answer to most of your questions will depend on which universe you'll want to play in. But I'll still try to answer each of them individually:


That's the UCAS way of working. It's not the same everywhere. For example in Korea or HK (and probably all the chinese states), the fixer will do the meeting with the Johnson. The fixer is more or less part of the crew. He's "family".
In the UCAS, the fixer is more likely to look for deniability. "I can't sell you a gun but I know a man who could get you one.", "You need something done? No, don't tell me what that is, I don't want to know. Just tell me who you need." it's quite common in the US crime literature. This way, the fixer is not involved as far as the law is concerned (or at least not that badly).


This depends on the universe you play in.
In any case, there are people who are not corp citizen nor corp employees, but their lives are still heavily influenced by the corps. Their business is impacted by the corps, the products they buy are very likely to come from a corp and so are the media they consume.

Attitude could help you for this, but from my point of view it was written by people with the "Technothriller" approach. The world Attitude describes is mostly ours with some magic and cyber sprinkled on top. I'd rather redirect you towards the book I wrote about all these aspects. I'll admit it's a bit biased towards the 80s cyberpunk approach but I tried to keep things open enough to allow for different visions. You'll find the PDF here (thanks to JesterZero for the hosting, it's time I finally set my home server back up).

Hello Sonsaku , welcome to the Shadows


It's a kinda traditional thing (ImO)
in western Countries (CAS,UCAS,ADL) the Fixer is more of a Middleman who lives more by who he knows ( certain Johnsons and certain
Runners) and brings them together.
But you can always change ...that pace.
It's fully OK, that if your runners know and trust their fixer that they can send him as their Face to do the negotiation
A good Example would be Ronin where the Woman(Deirdre) is the Fixer and also the Leader of the Team.


Well they belong to the States or to themselves.
Megacorps are a kind of State within the State, but the CAS, UCAS,NAN etc still exist with their own Gouvernment,Army,etc.


So what about ist ?
The Megamall can belong to one Corp, the biggest shops can belong to other Corps or daughter Companies and there may be indipendant Shops in said Megamail.
Not every Shop, Factory or Property/Real estate is External Territory .
Only the 10 biggest AAA Megacorps have E. T.


Ahhh I see a misconception there...
The whole SR World does not consider only of Megacorps and Wageslaves and nothing else.
I guess maybe a 1/3 of the Population belongs to a Corporation or another, another 1/3 may be working for the Gouvernment and the last 1/3 is "independent"

In the Attitude Book you can read that some of the Runners are Media Celebrities ( Search for Karl Kombatmage ) or seen as Robin Hoods....


No ! By far not !
I guess most SINners have National SINs, are normal Citizens of the State they live in
Like I wrote Megacorps are just a PART of the Shadowrun World, not most of it



I call Bullshit on the Bullshit caller.
No Shadowrunner has SINless tattoed on his forehead and if he uses a Fake SIN (which he should) than he is seen just as well as any ordinary SIN user.
And why should a Runner tell anybody that he is a Runner ? Thats the biggest Bullshit of them all
( and some Runners that do good Runs are considered Urban Heroes , just go and check the Karma Rewards in the core book, there's a chapter for Feeling Good Runs )



SR4A Attitude
SR4A 6th World Almanach
and SR4A Seattle City Book

HougH!
Medicineman

I see a misconception here.

There are exactly ten corporations with AAA rating. So "the 10 biggest AAA" is meaningless. Those ten AAA corporations are more or less the ten largest corporations, but even that is open to debate (though all ten AAA are among the fifteen or so largest corporations).

There are 10 AAA corporations and about 50 AA corporations. Receiving AA rating grants extraterritoriality. Receiving AAA rating grants representation on the Corporation Court (the arbitrage body for litigations involving extraterritorial corporations) and a share of Zurich-Orbital Gemeinshaft Bank (the corporate court financial arm).

Lately Catalyst products has been slowly moving toward changes at that level, but they have yet to come to a term.

I think i prefer 3. with a little of the heroic of 2.

My last game was WoD and im kinda burn out of "we all amoral bastard/proffesionals with no friends" that my last vampire game became but i also dont quite like for my game the whole "SINless are the only people worth meeting"




Thanks this really help me out on how to figure out my fixer role in the game



Wow thanks, i will check it out.



ohhh ok so it would be safe to say that while the wageslave is indeed biased as seeing shadowrunners as terrorist and whatnot. The non-corporate SINner is something in between? Maybe they see you as a robin hood?



That is kind of my fault, i played copycat killer in which the daughter of a former shadowrunner now fixer is killed who apparently was a totally legal ork who went to university but was married or dated as ork ganger living in the underground. I didnt think much of that but when i created the group fixer, a talismonger in the good part of the barrens i gaver her a sister who was a fomori dark mage studying in MIT&T.

One of the player took a liking the NPC and decided his PC would dater her. So the Fomori does know the PC is a SINless Shadowrunner. Again, i didnt knew it was such a big NO! but them one of the player who every session reminds me that he has being playing Shadowrun "since 3rd edition when it finally got serious!!!!!!" called bullshit on that.

I think i prefer 3. with a little of the heroic of 2.

My last game was WoD and im kinda burn out of "we all amoral bastard/proffesionals with no friends" that my last vampire game became but i also dont quite like for my game the whole "SINless are the only people worth meeting"




Thanks this really help me out on how to figure out my fixer role in the game



Wow thanks, i will check it out.



ohhh ok so it would be safe to say that while the wageslave is indeed biased as seeing shadowrunners as terrorist and whatnot. The non-corporate SINner is something in between? Maybe they see you as a robin hood?



That is kind of my fault, i played copycat killer in which the daughter of a former shadowrunner now fixer is killed who apparently was a totally legal SINner ork who went to university but was married or dated as ork ganger living in the underground. I didnt think much of that but when i created the group fixer, a talismonger in the good part of the barrens i gaver her a sister who was a fomori dark mage studying in MIT&T.

One of the player took a liking the NPC and decided his PC would dater her. So the Fomori does know the PC is a SINless Shadowrunner. Again, i didnt knew it was such a big NO! but them one of the player who every session reminds me that he has played Shadowrun "since 3rd edition when it finally got serious!!!!!!" (whatever that means) called bullshit on that.

If it makes you feel any better, I've been playing since 1st ed and am total fine with the SINless dating SINners. Only most indoctrinated of corp wage slaves are going to get that worked up about it. If this is the sister of a fixer then even as a SINner, the sister is going to at least be somewhat familiar with the SINless and shadowrunners in particular. A bigger issue might be the fixer not wanting a runner to date their sister since they know how wrong a run can go and might want to protect their sibling from the fallout (death of a lover, potential target for revenge, etc).
Seems like your problem is that this player has a particular view of the SR world and it bothers them if what you describe doesn't match that. You guys might want to come to some sort of consensus on the game world. Reading Attitude can help or Blade's book. Maybe watch a couple of movies that you each think captures the SR feel. Also, the 3rd ed SR world is different from the world as described in 4th and 5th ed. 3rd ed takes place during the late 50s and into the 60s. The later editions cover the 70s so naturally during that time frame attitudes and what is considered acceptable or normal is going to change.
This is one of the good things about SR. It isn't a static world.

Just as a general comment, any time anyone says, "No ___ would ever ___," and they're talking about people and relationships, they are wrong. People are individuals, and they do funny things for love.

In the real world, ordinary law-abiding people get involved with criminals, even terrorists. Maybe they don't know about their love interest's illegitimate activities. Maybe they know and don't approve, but they're in love, and sure that love will redeem them. Maybe they find bad boys/girls exciting. Maybe they're in denial, sure that their lover can't really be doing those bad things. Maybe they secretly approve their lover's Cause, but are just less willing to risk acting themselves. Maybe they didn't know, and by the time they found out, they were in too deep to get out. Maybe they're just thinking between their legs. Whatever the reason, it happens all the time.

I'm sure you already got many good informative answers, but here's my take on it


Fixers vs. Mr Johnsons:

Fixers purpose is to get you stuff. Access to gear, information, even jobs. Sometimes they are the link between a runner and an employer, sometimes not.
There are two kinds of Mr. Johnsons: One is simply anyone hiring the runners for a job, possibly on behalf of anther. The other is the professional Mr. Johnson, a specialist "hatchet man" go-between for corporations and criminals such as runners. They know the ways of both the corps and the streets and how to deal with each, and are often competent at both negotiations and dealing with violent criminals.

The neutral ground: Most of Seattle malls etc. are this. The corps have small stores there of course, but these are not necessarily born into the corp, and could just be regular workers. Not everyone are in the corp sphere, otherwise corp SIN would be standard rather than national SIN - the corps don't want the general population to be their citizens, because citizens are expensive. Much better to externalize most of the cost of the people, while retaining a small percentage of wageslaves or elite loyal corp citizens to act in the core businesses such as production, R&D etc.

View on runners: They are generally not viewed as ISIS, they are viewed as Al Capone or Bonnie and Clyde. The media is romanticizing the shadowrunners, they become antiheroes or outright heroes, often in sims and trids that are payed for by the very corporations these runners are supposed to fight against. So like most people don't want to have anything to do with criminals, they are still sometimes fetishized. Note that very few runners have criminal SINs, thats for the poor SINless hoodlooms living in the barrens or other places who get arrested. A typical runner does not exist on paper, except for fakes.

SINless do not necessarily have hellish lives, even if they live in redmond barrens. It's a bad place compared to downtown sure, but in many ways its no worse than living in a third world favela. That means that they have apartments, generally don't starve, have limited access to power and running water, and have armed gangers looking out for them and also collecting protection money for them. Work is either temporary (no checks), unlicensed work of all kinds, salvage, minor production, or whatever they can. Joining a gang is both a way of life and a danger in itself, but these are societies that actually works and has done so for 20+ years at least. Until the runners come around with assault cannons and fireballs of course.

The beauty of Shadowrun is that it does not have to be A or B, it can be both. You can have wageslaves paid in corporate scrip who work themselves to death, as well as corporations with apparently benevolent human resources divisions, that offers a very comfortable life with unequaled entertainment, or even in some cases a little freedom. It's a big world, make it your own and emphasize what you like best.

As for the troll thing, yes the player is full of it, I can definitely see exactly this situation happening, and if the other player enjoys it, let him. Too many games have players and GMs not allowing others to have fun.

Regarding the fixer role, it has rarely been explored beyond "person with lots of contacts".

My understanding of the trade is the fixer purpose is to provide both M. Johnson and runners with trust. Both side are making promises. That M. Johnson will pay. That the runners will bring back real data, or really investigate the matter. That the runners won't just drop the job and sell all the sensitive details to another corporation. And that neither the Johnson nor a runner is a cop trying entrapment.

There's a long standing debate about whether the runners should try and be able to identify M. Johnson and his employer and what the consequences should be. To me, the fact that people who have been playing Shadowrun RPG for twenty-five years still cannot reach an agreement about this is a give-away that in-universe, it would simply be impossible for the shadowrunning community to work without settling this issue for good. My answer is that fixers guarantee both sides of the deal.

If a Johnson cross runners, it's bad business for the fixer because other runners will no longer trust him or her to vet for Johnson. If runners cross a Johnson, it's bad business for the fixer because other Johnson will no longer trust him to find reliable teams. That give fixers a strong incentive to police the shadow business on both sides.

Sure, double crossing is interesting from a storytelling point of view. But so is terrorists threatening a city with a nuclear bomb. It's just that if it happened every week, the setting would falter. So in my game, it is expected in case of a double cross that the fixer disclose the offending party identity, whether it is the Johnson or the runners and call every favour owed by Johnsons and runners he has worked with through the years to deliver punishment, so as to demonstrate he holds his own, restore his reputation and keep his customers in line. If that results in a dead Johnson, the megacorporation would actually thank the fixer for getting rid of a rotten apple that would have threatened their access to shadow talents. And if that results in a dead teammate, the rest of team would be equally grateful.

There are several references to shadowrunners being romanticized even for the corp youth, such as the Karl Combatmage series in the AGS (Germany). As others have already pointed out, the world view varies across the source material, but groups generally converge on a shared vision -- unless somebody with a completely incompatible world view shows up.

Also, inconsistent characterizations of shadowrunners do not have to be unrealistic. The old "terrorist vs. freedom fighter" thing...

Lots of good comments and explanations, so I'll just hit a couple things that seem to have slipped through the cracks.



Vanilla may have just been a poor word choice. Seattle has long been the default game setting. There are some good explanations/theories why, one of mine is the tremendous variety of the area, which is about the opposite of vanilla. There is a huge variety of terrain/domains and culture in the area. There is a mix of agriculture and high tech and lots in between. There is a real Seattle underground. Pretty much, if you want some diversity, you can find or pretend all but a few extremes can be implemented in Seattle. Plus, it IS a temperate rainforest, so you get that noir feeling even the weather is always dismal.



You mention running Missions. I think Missions were originally developed so GMs could run games with interchangeable players/characters. It is one reason there are some Mission specific limitations for these type games/campaigns. I am not sure, but I think one reason to have a fixer middleman in this situation is to speed up game play/explanations of how does a one off M. J. know the individual players? It helps to have a sort of common "default" Fixer contact. It also leaves the door open for the M. J. doublecross and not totally burning a players limited contacts in the ongoing Missions campaign.

This all just my surmise based on my experience with Missions so far.



Extraterritoriality can be claimed by corps entitled to it on any location they want and have a right claim. I think, not positive as it's been a while and a few editions, it is as simple as clearly defining the area and posting notification. I emphasize want because they may not desire to claim extraterritoriality or may not want their affiliation known. Iirc, a corp can even lease space and designate it extraterritorial (if they have that right) which would explain a multi-store mall with a mix of several extraterritorial spaces along with regular jurisdictional spaces.



Hanging out with shadowrunners may be a risk, so the reason needs to outweigh the risk.

Why do legal employees currently risk doing illegal things? If your players are wanting their PC's contacts to do illegal stuff for them, then there should be a reason.

In the example of the body shop doing illegal cyberware, maybe the Doc is NOT a Sinner, maybe he lost his license or can't afford the malpractice insurance for his legal business, or the it is corp sponsored for their mainly legal, in house procedures, but that Mr. Johnson has ordered the to do on the side whether they really want to or not.



Think of wageslaves as people working at Walmart. Think of the other sinners as people trying to make a living without working for Walmart. (Sorry Walmart and those of you who may work there.)



Again think Walmart, except they do not have the skill or capital, or ...whatever to open a legit business. There are many ways to have become sinless. There have been a few system wide computer crashes that wiped out peoples savings, homes, wealth and identity documents, so they have no way to prove who they are or what they had. Countries have ceased to exist, been created, or drastically changed and forced migrations have occurred for various reasons.

If you want a recent analogy, think of those who lost in the Banking/housing collapse. Are they going to trust the system that screwed them? Those responsible for it may have even profited from it and the ensuing bailout with a big bonus. Some of the most cynical (think shadowrunner types here) have voluntarily gone off grid, off system. That is their way of "escaping the corps" and the system. I do wonder if some are doing shadow business and I do fantasize they are going after those responsible, in a somewhat shadowrun type plot. The system has not punished those responsible, I think 1 person remotely involved has been sentenced to jail time and that was for not hiding some money well enough.



You need to convey that setting to your players. It is possible within the setting. Emphasize how things we take for granted are no longer easy or available at the touch of a finger. Imo, the barrens are partly a product of the computer crashes and ownership records being lost, owners dying in a VITAS plague and the general breakdown of parts of society due to economics and the general chaos of countries falling and fracturing.

People have already given some good pointers on the subject. I'll add to think of it like areas where illegal aliens are concentrated and have developed their own system of getting things done.



Lots of good reasons for what followed this part I quoted, but I am sort of wondering about the logistics of how she is living in Seattle (I assume from previous comments) and attending class in Massachusetts? I'm sure it could be done, but not easily and surely there is something lost along the way. At first I thought correspondence, which would be hard for some of the "labs", then thought of attending online, but magic (did I recall correctly that she is studying magic?) and tech do not interact well and she would not see astral things. Then I thought maybe she is astrally projecting and commuting that way, which may work, but would also impose a few limits. Maybe a mix of astral and online? It just seems sort of all around difficult to me and lots simpler solutions exist. Maybe this entire logistic problem puts stress on the relationship? Or she moves to MA to simplify attending? Or she enrolls in one of the local colleges magic programs (which I think is the real reason and the new GM was unaware of them, but MIT&T is sort of well known) and resentment for giving up her dream and great opportunity puts stress on the relationship? All in all, something that just seemed odd to me, but could have some great story hooks.

If you want a good movie reference, the 1995 Michael Mann film 'Heat' has an excellent example of a fixer, gives some great examples of how Shadowrunners can interface with the non-Running world, how cops/security forces work against 'Runners, and some great ideas on how Shadowrunners operate.
Another De Niro film is 'Ronin' which introduces you to the street doc, the quick friendships common adversity breeds among otherwise 'amoral scumbags', a poser trying to wear big girl panties, another great fixer/'runner in Jean Reno's Vincent, a beautiful Irish Johnson that isn't afraid to get her hands dirty, and the multiple layers of double and triple-crosses that can happen in the Shadows.

Four hours, great critically-acclaimed action flicks, and a firm mental picture of how you might do things later in the game? Time well spent, if you ask me...

Going further back, if you're running 2e/3e, look for a copy of The Neoanarchist's Guide To Real Life.


Also, if you're looking for movie references, the 2012 movies Dredd and Total Recall are almost perfect Shadowrun movies for ambiance, from my perspective.