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The Shadowrun Thread! For All Your Shadowrun Needs!

Ehhh.... I really, heavily disagree with that notion of the world. Shadowrun, like all cyberpunk, IS a true dystopia. Favela like slums around American cities. SIN-less people being de facto rightless. Corporate wars (quite open corporate wars; remember when Fuchi died?). More ecological pollution and natural disaster and radiated zones than you can throw a stick at. And so on and so forth.

Shadowrun is not the sleek and superficially clean sort of cyberpunk Deus Ex is, though 4E briefly went into that direction (and was actually quite good at it, I'm more annoyed at the direction 5E is taking). Shadowrun IS the dirty sort of cyberpunk
 
Sydonai said:
Actually, given what is publicly known about Aztechnology I could see people believing that this is what Aztechnology believes they are doing, even if it isn't real.
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People don't really know about the evil stuff Azzies do. They have actually beaten Horizon in the PR war even.

Susano said:
Ehhh.... I really, heavily disagree with that notion of the world. Shadowrun, like all cyberpunk, IS a true dystopia. Favela like slums around American cities. SIN-less people being de facto rightless. Corporate wars (quite open corporate wars; remember when Fuchi died?). More ecological pollution and natural disaster and radiated zones than you can throw a stick at. And so on and so forth.

Shadowrun is not the sleek and superficially clean sort of cyberpunk Deus Ex is, though 4E briefly went into that direction (and was actually quite good at it, I'm more annoyed at the direction 5E is taking). Shadowrun IS the dirty sort of cyberpunk
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The events I named are canon. All employees have genetic data on file in all AAAs (used to anyway, AAA list has changed since the novel) and most corps test genetics for genetic predisposition for magic or increased intelligence. Corps have always tried to breed loyalty with many taking it literally.

They also try to literally breed intelligence and magic but that is a whole different bag with one novel even having that scientist be date raped.
 
The point is, there is no Masquerade which only the Runners look behind. Well, there is in regards to Immortal Elves and the Horrors and whatnot, but not in regards to the awfulness of the world. Yes, corporate citizens are sheltered. But there is no such a thing as a general hush-up of the awfulness of the world. The world is bleak, and it is in fact openly bleak. You don't need to be a runner to see that. It's in the in-universe news every day. In fact, the corps even play that up in their propaganda, and that's canon, too: By showing how chaotic and brutal the world out there is, they make the own corp seem safe and comfy, so that people don't get any ideas about leaving.
 
Yeah, much of the world is shit but it heavily varies on where you live. Cuba's not bad and will probably stay pretty good for as long as nobody figures out what Neo-Communism is supposed to be.

Poland like 100% sucks being poor as dirt and basically an active war zone. Try to not get shot while standing in bread lines.

Germany varies, I think that Black Forest is not bad as long as you do not actually wander through the forest.

France has a couple fucked zones, mostly in the north, but is not bad.

China is in a new warring states period so it sucks.

Britain is a shit hole.

Italy is not bad.

Leonardo's domain is great but good luck getting in.

Parts of Africa have actually seriously improved with areas kept stable by shamans and not much Corp presence.

Australia may be sentient and out to kill you.
 
Conundrum said:
Yeah, much of the world is shit but it heavily varies on where you live. Cuba's not bad and will probably stay pretty good for as long as nobody figures out what Neo-Communism is supposed to be.
Poland like 100% sucks being poor as dirt and basically an active war zone. Try to not get shot while standing in bread lines.
Germany varies, I think that Black Forest is not bad as long as you do not actually wander through the forest.
France has a couple fucked zones, mostly in the north, but is not bad.
China is in a new warring states period so it sucks.
Britain is a shit hole.
Italy is not bad.
Leonardo's domain is great but good luck getting in.
Parts of Africa have actually seriously improved with areas kept stable by shamans and not much Corp presence.
Australia may be sentient and out to kill you.
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How are the Poles doing?
And what shape is Hawaii in?
 
Sydonai said:
How are the Poles doing?
And what shape is Hawaii in?
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Invaded by Russia in the 30s. Then the Russians stuck around, and the Poles had a bit of a guerilla war until the 60s. Managed to drive the Russians out in the aftermath of the Crash 2.0, and is since basically a protectorate of Saeder-Krupp.

Hawaii is an independent kingdom, but the Japanese Great Dragon Ryumyo basically controls both the king and the opposition. Recently, there has been some upheaval because Hawaii has taken in so many refugees from Yomi, the former Japanese metahuman prison colony in the Philippines (opened up again 15 years back or so).
 
Sydonai said:
How are the Poles doing?
And what shape is Hawaii in?
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Poles as in Poland? Shit sucks, they were at the heart of the Eurowar and there has been near constant fighting since.

Been awhile since I read up on Hawaii but when I did it depends, one of their cities is a special corporate zone, I think Honolulu, so they have corp crawling all over the place but are largely left alone outside the city. Lot of people want to go back to the tribal ways but I think that took a blow after the blood magic incident. They also get a lot of money from being a premier location for body sculpting surgeries.

Plenty of poverty but not a bad place overall since the tourism, neutrality, and surgery bring in money.
 
If I remember my shadowrun history right, in about 2006 in the backstory, during the resource rush that eventually resulted in the Great Ghost Dance, people rushed to the Arctic to try and resource mine it...but the rising mana levels and the ongoing Awakening basically chased them off when freak ice storms etc started up. (Similar things were happening all over the world, like forests regrowing IIRC). That kind of changed in the Year of Hailies comet, the mana spike left some Oricalcum up there that was found. I kind of forget what happened afterwards though.

There's a few research bases up there, a mining city and hten thousands of people who have headed up there to effectively drop of the grid IIRC.

EDIT: wait, shit. I was referring to Antartica here, not sure what's up with the Artic itself.
 
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Bel said:
If I remember my shadowrun history right, in about 2006 in the backstory, during the resource rush that eventually resulted in the Great Ghost Dance, people rushed to the Arctic to try and resource mine it...but the rising mana levels and the ongoing Awakening basically chased them off when freak ice storms etc started up. (Similar things were happening all over the world, like forests regrowing IIRC). That kind of changed in the Year of Hailies comet, the mana spike left some Oricalcum up there that was found. I kind of forget what happened afterwards though.
There's a few research bases up there, a mining city and hten thousands of people who have headed up there to effectively drop of the grid IIRC.
EDIT: wait, shit. I was referring to Antartica here, not sure what's up with the Artic itself.
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Interesting, sounds like it might actually be a viable setting for a game, especially one that wants to avoid more globe-spanning issues.
 
Sydonai said:
:facepalm:As in the Artic and Antartica.
Nobody melted them or anything stupid like that, right?
There any form of civilization there?
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You could have said arctic and Antartic regions considering Poland has a very important role in Shadowrun European history and the arctic regions do not. You may note I was not the only person to mistake your question.

I am actually trying to recall how global climate change went in Shadowrun, I am pretty sure it has been referenced, many places are hotter than before I think but I also think Mother Nature is working to fight the melting of the ice caps.

Antarctica as I recall has tons of orichalcum and both poles have a lot of research locations. I think the north pole has ley lines of some importance and so has some decent magical research going on.
 
Climate change basically got overwritten by the awakening - at the very least, the latter produced so much chaotic weather that just doesn't make sense by current meteorology that any effects from climate change aren't noticeable.
 
Serafina said:
Climate change basically got overwritten by the awakening - at the very least, the latter produced so much chaotic weather that just doesn't make sense by current meteorology that any effects from climate change aren't noticeable.
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Do you think Australia has meteorologists still or do you think they just all left?
 
Conundrum said:
True, silly thought, I was thinking more about TV meteorologists trying to predict the weather.
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Well, if you take Sydney as an example, when the permanent storm above the city starts to act up, "radio, satellite and wireless Matrix connections disappear". Communication (as well as many other aspects of modern life) become somewhat more limited. This is obviously the kind of thing that numerous experts would be paid to try to predict in advance. How successful they generally are would be a question for individual GM's though, I guess.

You'd still get some people trying to predict Mana Storms in the outback, of course. The population wouldn't be on par with a metropolitan area, but there'd still be parazoologists, parageologists, mining outposts and the occasional town.
 
TempestK said:
Well to be fair the base data they're working off of is incredibly skewed anyway. Given the living conditions most orcs and trolls are subjected to, their average lifespan across the board is skewed by outside influences. There's also the fact that Goblinized orcs and trolls live full human-duration lives.
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Always thought that'd lead to a fascinating social dynamic for the Goblin races, with the huge population growth of native born, but community leaders and such skewing heavily towards the longer lived, very likely better educated, Goblinized humans.
 
Okay, so I'm currently in relatively high-level Shadowrun game. Well, it's not started yet, but the chargen is Sum-13 with the stipulation Resources must at least D.

Anyway, I decided to take Friends in High Place (terrible quality, I know, but it fit the background so I don't mind much even if it proves to be mostly useless) and I'm left puzzled at... well, uh.

Anyone got example for Connection 10 Corporate Scientist and Manager? Scientist with MCT, Manager with EVO. Campaign is on Japan, no specific area though.
 
theweepingman said:
Okay, so I'm currently in relatively high-level Shadowrun game. Well, it's not started yet, but the chargen is Sum-13 with the stipulation Resources must at least D.

Anyway, I decided to take Friends in High Place (terrible quality, I know, but it fit the background so I don't mind much even if it proves to be mostly useless) and I'm left puzzled at... well, uh.

Anyone got example for Connection 10 Corporate Scientist and Manager? Scientist with MCT, Manager with EVO. Campaign is on Japan, no specific area though.
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Example like a known character in the setting, example stat block, or?
 
Conundrum said:
I will see if I can dig up a name but a rating 10 scientist contact I would figure as someone like the scientist who ran Aztechnology's deltaware/cyberzombie clinic in the dragon trilogy.
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Ah, do you mean Secret of Powers or Dragonheart? I've read the first, but that was a very long time ago - so in that case, Cyberzombie was ultra-secret research. Haven't read Dragonheart, though, so I can't comment.

EDIT: Researching a bit, they are both old. So the 2075 equivalent would be...

... let's dig up corps conspiracy book.
 
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Probably someone that led the research on AIs that inadvertently created CFD.
 
All the characters I can think of are from like the 2050s, if you want someone mentioned more recently I can try. Maybe the assassin book might mention someone.
 
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