thebitterguy

I adore the Shadowrun setting. I'm not really a fan of the whole elves/modern or elves/cyber fiction (Lackey and company's books mainly), but I just really dug the entire game setting of SR - from the conspiracy stuff that you pointed out to the struggling to survive in the streets to heroes from the unlikeliest places to whatever.

Just the mood, the established chars, the history... everything. The game mechanics weren't perfect (though I love the magick system), but not so bad I didn't run it.

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nottheterritory.livejournal.com

I never liked the R. Talisorian game much - nor did I think it was all that cutting edge. I thought, for all it's flaws, Shadowrun felt more like a cyberpunk game the R. Talisorian one - Elves or no.

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doc-mystery.livejournal.com

I remember being more interested in some of the other cyberpunk authors, rather than Gibson.

On author in particular, Mike McQuay, had a series of four gritty, noirish SF books I very much enjoyed, and thought would have been an excellent setting for a cyberpunk RPG campaign. These were the Matthew Swain series, and included:

Hot Time in Big Town
When Trouble Beckons
The Deadliest Show in Town
The Odds are Murder

I always wondered what happened to this author, and only learned today that he died in 1995.

::B::

As for elves and SF settings, this is just another example where too much fannish cross-over is a bad thing.

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I'll confess to not having a whole lot of experience with Cyberpunk 2020.

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My favourite CP series was the Marid books by Effinger.

Gibson gets props for being the Godfather of the genre, I guess. I enjoyed his last trilogy, even though I only read the last book.

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I hear good things about SR4. Dunno if the mechanics will ever be 'perfect', but since the game does so much it's easy to see how it could be hard to put together a unified system that does everything.

I still think it would work well as a Tri-Stat game.

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I'm gonna have to break down and give Tri-Stat a thorough reading and run. 'course it'd help to have an in-person group...

I've got the free download, just never *read* it. :P

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Wow, didn't know they were doing a SR4 already. Who's doing it?

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dawgstar.livejournal.com

I was sort of the opposite of the fella you describe. I came into the CP RPG with Shadowrun, which I really dug (I was also, um, 12 at the time I think, and these things are hard for me to grow out of) and finding a ("the," even) cyberpunk RPG without the stuff I'd come to know and love made the whole setting a bit bland for my tastes.

That being said, my favorite SR stuff -is- the Universal Brotherhood adventure (I really miss Nigel Findley), so I expect I'm in your camp there, too.

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Fanpro, the guys who are doing SR now.

adamjury is working on it in some capacity.

They're taking the matrix wireless, because it helps to occasionally put SF game technology on a even footing with real world tech.

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Coolness.

Yeah, it's generally a good idea. (Though, I thought I remember something about it being wireless except for certain datalinks for better security. It was a novel, something to do with a tribunal of megacorp types and a satellie... I could be mistaken.)

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Mmmmm, UB....

Yes. Nigel was the shiznit.

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Ten years ago, a friend's dog vomitted on my copy of UB. It was quite upsetting.

Thankfully I snagged another copy at a sale, years later; but still, the principle of the thing.

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thothmeister.livejournal.com

I was just about to mention those books actually. They actually led to one of my favorite CP sourcebooks When Gravity Fails.

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thothmeister.livejournal.com

It's ironic how you mentioned vampires after CP... my first game writing work was Crashpoint (1995), set in Ianus Games Cyperpunk Alternate Reality Universe, where the two concepts were mixed.

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oakthorne.livejournal.com

Honestly, I loved Shadowrun before the Earthdawn elements became quite as ubiquitous as they are now.

I have vowed that the next game I run is going to be based out of a brothel in the Barrens, run by a madame who is a little too soft-hearted for her own good, so she doesn't take as big of a share as she could. Unfortunately, this means that they are in for hard times, in terms of keeping the place running, and the girls and boys off the street.

So, she turns to the group within the brothel, and they hunt out a couple of jobs that only an eclectic group of prostitutes and SINless folk can get done.

The players have already chosen out their characters: the soft-hearted, shy orc guard who has a crush on all of the ladies there, but is hell on wheels if anyone tries anything funny; the ex-Bunraku whore decker who can really only handle sex in a chip-persona, so she writes her own personality chips; the voudounista of Erzulie.

It will be tons of fun. :-)

Joe

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That's one of the ones I'm missing. Got the main Night's Edge book, Dark Metropolis, Grimm's Cybertales and Playground.

The AU stuff was a great addition to the original CP 2020 setting. Good to use whole hog, or in small doses.

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jadasc.livejournal.com

My introduction to cyberpunk gaming was ICE's CyberSpace, which I still think of as one of the better settings. (The system was, well, SpaceMaster. But that's beside the point.)

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Very neat frame for the campaign. I'd play that game.

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Well, if not so much cutting edge, then how about prototypical?

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I never saw any of the Cyberspace product (hence my excluding it from the list), but I did look at the cover of the Death Valley Prison supplement a few times and think "that's kinda cool."

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thothmeister.livejournal.com

Look for RPG dealers at cons. I was surprised to discover one at Torcon 2003 who had one.

That was the first time I signed a copy of that book for anyone other than my mom. :)

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Hey Joe -- if you take a look at most FanPro Shadowrun releases, you'll probably find that the Earthdawn elements have been toned down a fair bit. They started to take a backseat to more political plots shortly after SR3 came out, really.

They'll always be floating around -- not like we can or would want to retcon them, since they did lead to some very important events in the setting [Dunkelzahn's death, for one] -- but with FASA gone and Earthdawn licensed to another [well, two other...] companies, the ED ties have faded.

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oakthorne.livejournal.com

That's awesome.

I know it is certainly one of the reasons I am looking forward to SR4. I'd love to get back into Shadowrun, but the prospect of picking it up afresh has been far too daunting in past years, given the sheer number of books. I am eagerly looking forward to seeing the new system.

Regards,
Joseph

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I totally understand your perspective. Writing for Shadowrun 3rd Edition was often more the case of "researching for Shadowrun" :-)

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oakthorne.livejournal.com

As an aside, wish me luck.

I just sent Rob a copy of the NDA, so here's hoping that I may be jumping into Shadowrun from the other side of the reader/writer line here before too long. :-)

Regards,
Joseph

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You would be thinking of the -- wireless by necessity, due to the difficulty of stringing cable up into orbit ;-) -- connection that the Zurich Orbital platform has.

Most SR1-SR3 connections were wired.

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Cool news, and best of luck! It's a great time to get involved.

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Well, yes, I realise that - but I thought there was an explanation that the reason a lot of *other* stuff was *still* wired was for greater security.

I mean, if the tech was good enough for the satellite to be wireless, then why have anything else be wired?

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Most of the wireless stuff in SR1-3 was bodged on afterwards. If you take a look at Virtual Realities 1, for example, you'll see that wireless is /only/ used for Satellite uplinks. I'm pretty sure the "wireless is less secure" was also a bodge, but I don't have time to dig up the references at this time.

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Ah, it's not that important.

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rentagurkha.livejournal.com

Well, I don't like Shadowrun because it has elves in it, but that has nothing to do with gaming in general. I thought Ex Machina was pretty good, overall.

I think Bruce Sterling was the author in question.

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rentagurkha.livejournal.com

I have to agree. I was one of the few people who loved Corporate Shadowfiles. It gave all sorts of good reasons why corporations would do the sort of things they do in most Cyberpunk games.

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Was it a Toronto dealer? Cause they'll likely be at TCon.

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That is one SB I lack from the game. Nigel Findley wrote it? I'll have to keep my eyes open for it.

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