kontextmaschine:

kontextmaschine:

Also to anyone complaining about countries devoting resources to this sub, the US maintains deep sea capabilities for reasons of state, which includes deep sea rescue capabilities mostly relating to the SLBM leg of the nuclear triad, this was a free practice scenario and like, enrichment for those guys.

Like Air Force SERE and search & rescue, a lot of this isn’t really justified in terms of per-incident return on investment, but by affecting combatants’ senses of the lethality of defeat it changes their payoff matrices in ways that minimize principal-agent problems.

Same as the Great Ghost Dance or General Butt Naked convincing warriors they had magical protection from the enemy, or Japanese, Christian, or Islamic ideas of death at war as an honor bringing afterlife rewards (with chaplains embedded with armies to reinforce the sense of protection against ultimate annihilation), or even a lot of the function of battlefield medics in an explosive age (from a government perspective a multiple amputee soldier is just as much a total loss as a dead one, and costs for ongoing care besides) – shifting some margin of your forces’ energies from self-protection to mission success is huge

I 100% first heard about the Great Ghost Dance via the Shadowrun sequel.

prokopetz:

prokopetz:

I totally understand the sentiment behind applying the “I want shorter games made by people who are paid more to work less” meme to tabletop RPGs, but speaking as an editor and project manager, convincing tabletop RPG authors to write less is often precisely the problem. Like, no, Steve, a special ability whose mechanical effect is “you get to reroll a die” doesn’t need 275 words of flavour text. Put the worldbuilding bible down, Steve – don’t make me get the garden hose.

Like, I get that nobody wants a tabletop RPG that reads like stereo instructions, but on the other hand, RPG manuals are a kind of technical reference, and people need to easily be able to look up what shit does. There exists a happy medium between the RPG-as-stereo-instructions and a sea of italics were half the time the name of an ability and its associated rules toy end up on different spreads because the associated lore forced a mid-sentence page break.

(At one point I tried to compromise with an author like “well, what if we keep the long version, but also include a bullet-pointed quick reference sheet?”, and they were like “but I want people to have to read the microfiction”. I had to let that one sit for a full 24 hours before I trusted myself to compose a sufficiently diplomatic response.)

Given writers’ love of writing about writing, this was maybe an advantage of the Shadowrun books’ flavor-text-as-forum-posts format, if a writer was tempted to write too much and received pushback it could be replaced with dramatizing an in-universe poster starting to go overboard and getting brickbats

kontextmaschine:

Kindergarten Cop opens with such an early-90s mall sequence

Ahnold doing the trenchcoat-shotgun-little black sunglasses SNES Shadowrun thing

Gonna tell my kids Covid was Goblinization

I grew up reading Shadowrun sourcebooks, so hanging around on the internet riffing off each others’ posts several degrees inspired from a batshit external world kinda was the science fiction future I was promised

kontextmaschine:

You know, the Shadowrun notion of the “Mr. Johnson”, the cyber future using trivially thin pseudonymity to allow the same actors to use lightside and darkside capabilities… that didn’t really pan out, did it?

Interesting, because the European campaigns seemed to reflect some knowledge of the period antifascism that serves as precedent to modern partisan doxxing.

The main stuff is so Cascadian though, not even just Seattle as default setting, just the UCAS, CAS, Pueblo, Sioux Nation, and Aztlan basically ARE the northeast, south, midwest, and Mexico as seen from 90s Amerindian-adjacent (thinks they’re neat!) Cascadia. (They themselves are divided into that-but-it-me Salish-Sidhe, and Tir Taingire as basically Ren Faire State of Jefferson-tinted Oregon, which fair.)

Meanwhile the Chicago campaigns are a 50s drive-in movie.

You know, the Shadowrun notion of the “Mr. Johnson”, the cyber future using trivially thin pseudonymity to allow the same actors to use lightside and darkside capabilities… that didn’t really pan out, did it?

Interesting, because the European campaigns seemed to reflect some knowledge of the period antifascism that serves as precedent to modern partisan doxxing.

Just got to say “I gave at the office” but as I kept walking on realized there was no chance anyone would appreciate that as a reference to the SNES Shadowrun

kontextmaschine:

Learning about San Francisco’s ‘80s financial boom in the Japan Is The Future era makes '80s cyberpunk through to '90s bike messenger vogue make a bit more sense

Which means Shadowrun was actually kinda prescient in transposing it to Seattle, wasn’t it?

space-wizards:

kontextmaschine:

kontextmaschine:

andmaybegayer:

Shadowrun is a combo fantasy/cyberpunk RPG with a classless character system where you build up a character out of skills. I haven’t played a lot of it but I have read the rulebook.

The basic setting is that the world goes through cycles of fantasy and mundanity, and a new cycle of fantasy (the Sixth World) started in the early 2000’s, and we play in the aftereffects of that, sometime between the 2050’s and the 2100’s. Some humans randomly turned into orcs and goblins, some human kids are born as elves and dwarves, dragon’s awake for centuries-long slumbers beneath mountains, some people (mostly Native Americans in the setting) find out that they can do magic.

It’s also the dawn of the technology age, so the combination of magic and the internet produces your standard explosion of technological advancements for any cyberpunk game. By the time you start playing, there are cybernetic enhancements, energy weapons, Cool Future Drugs, etc. and thanks to a number of major disruptions to the status quo like the internet being destroyed, the Native American liberation movement seizing half of North America, and the heartbreaking death of the first dragon president of the United States (RIP Dunkelzhan), corporations have taken over and are more or less their own micronations. You usually play as a SINless, someone who isn’t tracked with a System Identification Number, which makes you particularly suited to Doing Crime without getting caught.

In theory the main loop of the game is Shadowrunning, doing corporate espionage for one of the various corporations that control the world, which usually involves breaking and entering in the physical world and hacking stuff in the Matrix, the global computer network that replaces the internet and into which many people are jacked all the time. You do this to further your own investigations into things you care about, look after your own interests, or just get paid, like in most RPG’s. You have various skills (Strength, Dex, Magic, Hacking, Tinkering, etc.) where you can spend points to improve each skill, and as you improve it you unlock abilities. So you can build up a brawler hacker or a magical wheelman if you want, without needing a class system.

Shadowrun’s combat isn’t my favourite, I like Cyberpunk’s Friday Night Firefight, but it has a fantastic setting. Dragon’s are great, they’re all hyper-wealthy superbeings who are behind major organizations or corporations and they make plans decades or centuries in advance. I you are involved in a dragon’s plan they probably ensured your parents had sex on a particular day so you’d be born at the right time. they are so unbelievably powerful that they take on an almost godlike stature in the world of Shadowrun and they are so fuckin hard to write for.

Your Essence kind of works as a class system; directing its finite amount towards being a mage/hacker/rigger/street samurai are basically exclusive. And then there’s the weird “prioritize race, magic use, wealth, and skills” character creation.

Also as part of an attempt to spread it to people who had a bookstore nearby but not a game store to get dice, it uses D6s for everything, which means both a lot of rolling and combat has a really narrow margin between “narrow miss” and “catastrophic kill”.

The main setting is Seattle but I think Chicago walled off full of magic bugs is a setting too; the sourcebooks were presented as posts to a Shadowrunner BBS with recurring characters commenting on it along the way.

There’s 3 Shadowrun computer RPGs that I hear are pretty good if you want to dip your toe in: Shadowrun Returns, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, and Shadowrun Hong Kong. 15-30 bucks each, 60 for the whole set + DLC on Steam, and I don’t think anything carries over between games if you want to skip any.

The SNES game got the atmosphere really good but fuzzed the mechanics; the Genesis game got the core loop well but isn’t all that memorable; the XBox 360 one is a forgettable FPS

kontextmaschine:

andmaybegayer:

Shadowrun is a combo fantasy/cyberpunk RPG with a classless character system where you build up a character out of skills. I haven’t played a lot of it but I have read the rulebook.

The basic setting is that the world goes through cycles of fantasy and mundanity, and a new cycle of fantasy (the Sixth World) started in the early 2000’s, and we play in the aftereffects of that, sometime between the 2050’s and the 2100’s. Some humans randomly turned into orcs and goblins, some human kids are born as elves and dwarves, dragon’s awake for centuries-long slumbers beneath mountains, some people (mostly Native Americans in the setting) find out that they can do magic.

It’s also the dawn of the technology age, so the combination of magic and the internet produces your standard explosion of technological advancements for any cyberpunk game. By the time you start playing, there are cybernetic enhancements, energy weapons, Cool Future Drugs, etc. and thanks to a number of major disruptions to the status quo like the internet being destroyed, the Native American liberation movement seizing half of North America, and the heartbreaking death of the first dragon president of the United States (RIP Dunkelzhan), corporations have taken over and are more or less their own micronations. You usually play as a SINless, someone who isn’t tracked with a System Identification Number, which makes you particularly suited to Doing Crime without getting caught.

In theory the main loop of the game is Shadowrunning, doing corporate espionage for one of the various corporations that control the world, which usually involves breaking and entering in the physical world and hacking stuff in the Matrix, the global computer network that replaces the internet and into which many people are jacked all the time. You do this to further your own investigations into things you care about, look after your own interests, or just get paid, like in most RPG’s. You have various skills (Strength, Dex, Magic, Hacking, Tinkering, etc.) where you can spend points to improve each skill, and as you improve it you unlock abilities. So you can build up a brawler hacker or a magical wheelman if you want, without needing a class system.

Shadowrun’s combat isn’t my favourite, I like Cyberpunk’s Friday Night Firefight, but it has a fantastic setting. Dragon’s are great, they’re all hyper-wealthy superbeings who are behind major organizations or corporations and they make plans decades or centuries in advance. I you are involved in a dragon’s plan they probably ensured your parents had sex on a particular day so you’d be born at the right time. they are so unbelievably powerful that they take on an almost godlike stature in the world of Shadowrun and they are so fuckin hard to write for.

Your Essence kind of works as a class system; directing its finite amount towards being a mage/hacker/rigger/street samurai are basically exclusive. And then there’s the weird “prioritize race, magic use, wealth, and skills” character creation.

Also as part of an attempt to spread it to people who had a bookstore nearby but not a game store to get dice, it uses D6s for everything, which means both a lot of rolling and combat has a really narrow margin between “narrow miss” and “catastrophic kill”.

The main setting is Seattle but I think Chicago walled off full of magic bugs is a setting too; the sourcebooks were presented as posts to a Shadowrunner BBS with recurring characters commenting on it along the way.

andmaybegayer:

Shadowrun is a combo fantasy/cyberpunk RPG with a classless character system where you build up a character out of skills. I haven’t played a lot of it but I have read the rulebook.

The basic setting is that the world goes through cycles of fantasy and mundanity, and a new cycle of fantasy (the Sixth World) started in the early 2000’s, and we play in the aftereffects of that, sometime between the 2050’s and the 2100’s. Some humans randomly turned into orcs and goblins, some human kids are born as elves and dwarves, dragon’s awake for centuries-long slumbers beneath mountains, some people (mostly Native Americans in the setting) find out that they can do magic.

It’s also the dawn of the technology age, so the combination of magic and the internet produces your standard explosion of technological advancements for any cyberpunk game. By the time you start playing, there are cybernetic enhancements, energy weapons, Cool Future Drugs, etc. and thanks to a number of major disruptions to the status quo like the internet being destroyed, the Native American liberation movement seizing half of North America, and the heartbreaking death of the first dragon president of the United States (RIP Dunkelzhan), corporations have taken over and are more or less their own micronations. You usually play as a SINless, someone who isn’t tracked with a System Identification Number, which makes you particularly suited to Doing Crime without getting caught.

In theory the main loop of the game is Shadowrunning, doing corporate espionage for one of the various corporations that control the world, which usually involves breaking and entering in the physical world and hacking stuff in the Matrix, the global computer network that replaces the internet and into which many people are jacked all the time. You do this to further your own investigations into things you care about, look after your own interests, or just get paid, like in most RPG’s. You have various skills (Strength, Dex, Magic, Hacking, Tinkering, etc.) where you can spend points to improve each skill, and as you improve it you unlock abilities. So you can build up a brawler hacker or a magical wheelman if you want, without needing a class system.

Shadowrun’s combat isn’t my favourite, I like Cyberpunk’s Friday Night Firefight, but it has a fantastic setting. Dragon’s are great, they’re all hyper-wealthy superbeings who are behind major organizations or corporations and they make plans decades or centuries in advance. I you are involved in a dragon’s plan they probably ensured your parents had sex on a particular day so you’d be born at the right time. they are so unbelievably powerful that they take on an almost godlike stature in the world of Shadowrun and they are so fuckin hard to write for.

Your Essence kind of works as a class system; directing its finite amount towards being a mage/hacker/rigger/street samurai are basically exclusive. And then there’s the weird “prioritize race, magic use, wealth, and skills” character creation.

Also as part of an attempt to spread it to people who had a bookstore nearby but not a game store to get dice, it uses D6s for everything, which means both a lot of rolling and combat has a really narrow margin between “narrow miss” and “catastrophic kill”.

Finally started Disco Elysium, and as dialogue system-heavy RPGs that open with you returning to awareness memory-blank in a ratty joint in the seedy neon Art Deco future go, it’s beating the SNES Shadowrun so far

In Shadowrun I identified as a hermetic mage, funny I should turn out to be a physical adept

Leaked Emails Show Crime App Citizen Is Testing On-Demand Security Force - VICE

“The broad master plan was to create a privatized secondary emergency response network,” one former Citizen employee told Motherboard. Motherboard granted multiple sources anonymity to protect them from retaliation from the company.

“It’s been something discussed for a while but I personally never expected it to make it this far,” another Citizen source told Motherboard.

In short, the product, described as “security response” in internal emails, would have Citizen send a car with private security forces to an app user, according to the former employee. A private security company working with Citizen would provide the response staff, the former employee added. A second Citizen source confirmed this description of the service.

rpgcovers:

Shadowrun: The Neo-Anarchist’s Guide to Real Life ~ FASA (1992)

lunaticobscurity:

some gifs from an amazing 1990 promo video for the tabletop rpg shadowrun

One of the things that’s going to stay with me til I die was reading the Shadowrun backstory to corporate sovereignty

(during some one-off urban crisis involving food riots a mob attacked a megacorp trailer truck they thought might have supplies but actually carried infectious medical waste [possibly from an AIDS-analogue, that woulda been a theme at the time], the corp security defended with deadly force and when the city government answerable to those mobs tried to prosecute them for it the Supreme Court used that hard case to make bad law and immunize them, this metastisized)

and in the end it’s like “but the megacorps left the remnant nations in place to take care of petty shit, like who really wants to be in charge of garbage collection?!?”

and I nodded sagely to this at age like 14, and then years later was like THE MAFIA. THE MAFIA WANTS TO BE IN CHARGE OF GARBAGE COLLECTION, THE NEW YORK AND SEVERAL ITALIAN MAFIAS HAVE ATTAINED GREAT POWER BY CONTROLLING THAT NECESSARY BOTTLENECK

discoursedrome:

apricops:

Every time I see one of those posts about “where are the fantasy stories with even remotely realistic economies and politics!” I glance over to the scattered notes and snippets I’ve made for Exactly That Story and get wracked with those why-aren’t-you-following-your-dreams shivers.

For the third edition of the Exalted rpg, they went to a lot of trouble to cajole the guy who developed the first edition to come back and write some material for the book, and he totally didn’t give a shit since he’d been doing other things for ten years at that point. He’s an economist now, so the biggest contiguous contribution he made was like two pages that just talk about about currency denominations, coinage, and seignorage in the game’s fantasy setting and how those things related to factional politics, and they cut basically the entire section because people do not want to read two pages of that in the core setting chapter of a high fantasy adventure game.

This was the same game line that hired an actual marine historian to write the book about seafaring and thus got a huge amount of material about shipboard chains of command, hull and rigging types, naval watch scheduling, and so on. I loved that book unironically, but you basically can’t use that sort of material because 95% of people will just totally skip your weird Moby Dick style digressions into whale physiology or whatever.

Anyway, regarding your specific story: if the Silmarillion teaches anything, it’s that sufficiently detailed worldbuilding can overcome the need to actually write readable fiction.

The best corporate finance text I’ve ever seen was a Shadowrun sourcebook