How to make Shadowrun less bad

[Stahlseele]

i think i know where my main mistake was:
the PAC looks very different, indeed.
but i think in SR1 there was, in the core book, an assault cannon (note the lack of panther) that looked closer to the cobra than anything else.

[duo31]

Then there is the Grizzly which is the Civilian version of the Barret.

Also, isn't the Ares Predator based off the Desert Eagle? From the side they don't look that similar, but the trapezoidal barrel / front end seems pretty distinctive of the DE.

The Ruger Super Warhawk is a Ruger Super Red Hawk, which, having held in person, can only assume was made for troll hands.


On the subjet of firearms oddities, Why is the FN 5-7C a machine pistol? if anything it should be a light service pistol with a high cap magazine and 1pt of free RC.

[Cochise]

but i think in SR1 there was, in the core book, an assault cannon (note the lack of panther) that looked closer to the cobra than anything else.

SR 1 listed an assault cannon but didn't have a picture for it. The thing that came closest to looking like a Barret in SR1 with a scope like the "Cobras" of the Robocop "fame" was the picture of the Ranger Arms SM-3 Sniper Rifle:



Later SR had it's own Barret 121 (in Fields of Fire) ... that obviously looked like a slightly bulkier version of the real Barret, just with bullpup config:



The SR3 artwork of the Barret 121 removed that big silencer for something that looks more like the barrel of the original Barret and added a fancier looking scope. Unfortunately I don't seem to be able to locate that in the interwebz ... my google-fu is weak there,

Also, isn't the Ares Predator based off the Desert Eagle?

No the Ares Predator is totally the rip-off of Robocop's "Auto 9":

Auto 9:


vs.

Ares Predator:

On the subjet of firearms oddities, Why is the FN 5-7C a machine pistol?

At least up to SR3 it was classified as "heavy pistol" that explicitly made use of light pistol / machine pistol ammuntion but retained heavy pistol weapon ranges. The lowered base damage of 6L (instead of 9M) due to that ammo was one of "balancing" quirks that all of the originally conceived "heavy pistols" with burst fire capabilities had:

1. Ares Viper Slivergun => capable of burst but restricted to "flechette" ammo
2. FN 5-7C => burst capable but light pistol ammo thus lower base damage
3. Savalette Guardian => burst capable but only as "complex action" instead of "simple action" as with other burst weapons
4. Ruger Thunderbolt => burst capable but exclusively restricted to that firing mode and no recoil on the first burst per combat phase but an increased recoil modifier of +4 (instead of +3) a the second burst in the same combat phase ... plus the associated "cop killer" stigma

There is one other (semi-) official SR3 heavy pistol that can do burst without such limitations: the Mauser Gladiator. It stems from the SR3 era where Fanpro (Germany) added many weapons that were created by using the in some cases slighty altered weapon construction rules from their "Cannon Companion" (called Arsenal 2060). Rulewise these construction rules allowed for that.

The other "bursting" weapon I can recall was that Yamaha Fubuki thingy in SR4 that was introduced as a ("somewhat" delayed) reaction to the "Metal Storm" principle being the "current" hipster in new weapon technologies.

[duo31]

Not sure where i saw the art for the AP as having a rounded triangle / trapezoidal front.

Now i see why the 5-7c became a machine pistol in 4E.

Thanks

[Cochise]

Maybe you were actually thinking of the Predator's "official" competitor for "the heavy pistol in the biz": the Browing Max-Power at some point certainly had artwork that reminds of the Desert Eagle:



And then ofc there are also the third and fourth incarnations in the Ares Predator line that do have somewhat trapezoidal fronts that do remind of a Desert Eagle to a certain extend. For purposes of comparision all four verions in a nifty image:

[Aryxbez]

Just watched Robocop 1 again, what a great movie.

I agree, I never watched it all the way through (caught it midway on the TV), but it seems pretty awesome and fitting for source material. Plus, as I've said before, it joys me to no end to had learned they used ASSAULT CANNONS! (what my Street Sam happened to be wielding at the time).

And the COBRA Assault Cannon is modeled on the .50 BMG Sniper Rifle Barret.

Not quite correct either. The "COBRA Assault Cannon" was not modeled on/after the .50 Barret BMG Sniper Rifle. It actually was nothing but a 0.50 Barret Sniper Rifle with a slight recoloring and a very select few plastic addons (mainly the scopes) . Compared to what they did to the Barreta 93R to get Robo's "Auto 9" the changes were negligible.

Maybe I'm getting lost on the nuance of some details here, but yeah:

The Cobras are actually older-specification Barrett M82 long-range .50 BMG rifles which have been dressed up extra plastic housing over the receivers and fitted with gigantic scopes.

Really just sounds like ya'll are saying basically the same damn thing.

This aside, what other bits of Street Sams haven't been mentioned/tackled for ideas yet? If Shadowrun technology advanced, do ye think it would give enough to Sam's to compete with awakened before the endgame, and/or would it be betraying "Cyberpunk" If stuff advertised in "Augmentation" advanced?

[Stahlseele]

There is much interesting stuff . .
The crunch and fluff just make it not work.

[Heisenberg]

This thread is now about...very large guns...?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Well, let's get back on track then.

One thing that doesn't get discussed enough about how we would fix or change Shadowrun is the implied competence of society-at-large. Generally, people assume a competence at least as high of that as the real world America; if not heightened even further by having access to phlebtonium, improved technology, and a social structure that empowers a police and surveillance state.

However, sometimes I wonder if this assumption shouldn't be questioned some and society's competence should be scaled back a little bit. Think Ghost in the Shell or even Mad Bull 34. Doing this would make stories like Kane and GingerBreadMan quite a bit more plausible. And it would actually cause the average body and explosion count to rise considerable. Of course, this comes at the cost of making society a bit less threatening -- but honestly, I think Shadowrun's society is a bit TOO threatening.

What do you, the viewer at home think?

[RadiantPhoenix]

It's more impressive to be able to outsmart a more competent foe.

It's nominally more impressive to be able to outsmart a nominally more competent foe.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Yeah, but if your foe is a lot more competent than you are then you either need plot contrivances or to limit the scope of your victories.

I'm not saying that this is a foundational problem of Shadowrun or anything. I think that the current status quo and how it forces PCs to interact with it (limit your carnage, don't go busting out the assault cannons for a gangland hit, spend most of your run on setup and cleaning up your tracks) is quite defensible and interesting in its own right. Just, how do people feel about a Shadowrun that was more 80s and 90s action-moviey?

[Username17]

Shadowrun has historically been very schizophrenic about a lot of issues. The fact that the city of Tokyo literally had more Elves in it than any of the Elvish countries should be a really fucking big deal. But that never really came up, and the sequellae of that were never dealt with. The basic collapsedness of society was one of, if not the most salient of those issues.

Shadowrun talks a good post apocalypse game now and again. Rampaging biker gangs, ubiquitous personal body armor, a wholly armed populace, a prostrate and balkanized government, corporate owned arcologies that are self sufficient next to "barrens," and so on. But all the futuristic Dickensian nightmare stuff sort of goes out the window the moment they stop actively talking about it. Whenever an author isn't in the middle of jacking off to RanXerox, the baseline assumptions always pivot back to 20th century middle class norms. Only in sporadic rants is the idea that water comes out of the tap and power comes out of a plug in the wall even questioned. Despite the fact that, obviously, in the kind of stateless hellscape so envisioned in their fractured empire scenario, none of that would be true.

Really, I think it's because few of the authors have spent any amount of time in Africa or even disaster zones in America. There should be skyscrapers that are just falling down because no one takes care of them because they are no longer being provided water and power. The abject poverty of the Barrens is never given the attention it deserves.

Shadowrun spends a lot of time criticizing mall culture, ranting about consumerism and social media. But that's not really a thing in places that don't have functioning states. It's trying to be "first world problems" and also "third world problems" at the same time. And you can really only do that if you have a much more important wealth gap between the haves and the have nots than Shadowrun authors are usually comfortable talking about. It should be like Elysium or Battle Angel Alita out there.

-Username17

[Morat]

Shouldn't it depend greatly on where you are? There should absolutely be plenty of places (that the PCs actually want to go to!) where the cops are useless and you can go balls-to-the-wall with whatever you can carry, not to mention active war zones where you're tooling around with a merc company equipped with hover tanks.

If "the world" stops pretty much meaning "Seattle, UCAS", then isn't the problem solved?

[Nath]

However, sometimes I wonder if this assumption shouldn't be questioned some and society's competence should be scaled back a little bit.

Because of the way the rules are used, equipment and procedures in SR are faultless until someone glitches his roll. And the way it is played, there is no roll until something significant and related to the PC is attempted. In other words, every camera in Seattle is perfectly working until a cop does try to spot a shadowrunner and glitches. Every Tir Tairngire military helicopter is in perfect flying condition until it tries to chase down runners and the pilot glitches. For the same reason, the entire world run on the idea that cyberware and comlink never run out of battery, unless, of course, you glitch. And so on.

[Korgan0]

Actually emphasising the collapsedness of Shadowrun society seems like an interesting way of including both trenchcoat and mohawk, wherein getting into an arcology saferoom demands covering tracks and care, whereas breaking busting down a gang stronghold allows for balls-to-the-wall assault cannon fuckery, since regardless of nominal jurisdiction, the police literally don't pay any attention to what goes on.

[kzt]

Shouldn't it depend greatly on where you are? There should absolutely be plenty of places (that the PCs actually want to go to!) where the cops are useless and you can go balls-to-the-wall with whatever you can carry, not to mention active war zones where you're tooling around with a merc company equipped with hover tanks.

If there ARE cops there, they will beat you if you go to guns. In these sorts of places they are the gang in blue. They have radios, reinforcements, lots of guns, loyalty to each other, and no reluctance use force. Bribes will probably work better.

[Whipstitch]

Frank nailed the schizophrenia bit. They actually did have plenty of crazy shit like the Crash Zone listed in the books but they never really would bother to stop and speculate how that shit might affect your commute.

[OgreBattle]

The world of Appleseed seems a good fit. It's got technology similar to GitS in a few cities while the rest of the world is lawless badlands where giant robots stalk the battlefield.

[Morat]

If there ARE cops there, they will beat you if you go to guns. In these sorts of places they are the gang in blue. They have radios, reinforcements, lots of guns, loyalty to each other, and no reluctance use force. Bribes will probably work better.

If the cops are useless A) not all of those things are likely to be true (mutual loyalty probably being #1) and B) that only applies if you're taking on the cops. But if they're just another gang, then attacking their enemies isn't going to be defined as "taking on the cops" or "committing a crime". Maybe they'll want to be paid to allow you to operate in their area, maybe they'll even pay you to fuck up people on their shit list because you're deniable.

That's assuming that the popos are still overwhelmingly powerful, there are plenty of places (even outside active wars) where they really aren't. Where a heavily armed shadowrunner team is more than a few underpaid and undergunned popos are willing (or able) to take on, especially if the fuzz thinks you're going to hit something that they don't care about and then leave.

There should be a whole spectrum from "MAD scanner-immune holdouts required" to "power armor and airstrikes are A-OK" depending on both the general area and the specific situation. The world is a big place, accommodating elaborate sneaky heists and massive gunfights shouldn't be too hard.

@Nath: That, and it seems like everything is ready only for you. Not just that none of the helicopters are broken, but none of them are in transit, fueling, waiting for takeoff clearance, fighting other shadowrunners, being used by a fratboy junior exec to impress girls, whatever. If Renraku's building X has just been hit hard, it just gets new drones and guards from the aether, they don't get pulled from other Renraku buildings in the area deemed less important. Unless you arrange it.

[kzt]

Let's take Mexico, which is close to the epitome of ineffectual cops. If you choose to get in a movie style shootout with the cops they will generally manage to kill your ass, if they can't right then then they can and will get help in short order that will. However if you spend a little time and money up front arranging to not encounter the cops then there is generally no problem. With more money and time you can often get them to help you, depending on just what you are looking to do.

[Morat]

Yes, and? I didn't say that "worthless police force" means "open season on pigs", I said "worthless police force" means "you can bring grenade machine guns and shit on a run and the cops won't come after you." In what way are we disagreeing?

I'm not talking about leveling police stations and not getting GTA police stars, I'm talking about trashing the local MCT compound and not getting police stars. There should be places where the cops don't feel obliged to intervene because nobody's paying them enough to take on a Force 8 fire spirit with their light pistols, or because they DGAF and you've bribed them, or because they have a mad-on for MCT and they've hired you.

I just think that there's no need to make Shadowrun only support one playstyle, given how large and varied the world is. You don't run around with assault rifles in London because the cops have their shit together and they'll kill you. But you also don't run around with MAD-resistant silenced holdouts in a warzone, because everyone who matters has assault rifles or better and they'll kill you.

[kzt]

Ok, makes sense.

[Username17]

I think Shadowrun was trying to move towards something like that, with their zone nomenclature. Unfortunately, it never really hung together and never really permeated the authors' zeitgeist, let along the players. Middle class America assumptions keep sneaking in from all sides, so you never really got the effect they were going for with AAA zones and Z zones - it all ended up being flattened out to the nicer and harsher parts of Baltimore or London as actually written.

You were supposed to have the whole world be Moscow or Sao Paulo - with unpowered slums that the police don't give a shit about right next to gated communities with their own police force armed with military weapons and prosecutorial immunity. But it ended up with the bad neighborhoods being treated more like Grave's End or Pigtown than real Favelas or Basti.

-Username17

[TheFlatline]

Shadowrun has historically been very schizophrenic about a lot of issues. The fact that the city of Tokyo literally had more Elves in it than any of the Elvish countries should be a really fucking big deal. But that never really came up, and the sequellae of that were never dealt with. The basic collapsedness of society was one of, if not the most salient of those issues.

Shadowrun talks a good post apocalypse game now and again. Rampaging biker gangs, ubiquitous personal body armor, a wholly armed populace, a prostrate and balkanized government, corporate owned arcologies that are self sufficient next to "barrens," and so on. But all the futuristic Dickensian nightmare stuff sort of goes out the window the moment they stop actively talking about it. Whenever an author isn't in the middle of jacking off to RanXerox, the baseline assumptions always pivot back to 20th century middle class norms. Only in sporadic rants is the idea that water comes out of the tap and power comes out of a plug in the wall even questioned. Despite the fact that, obviously, in the kind of stateless hellscape so envisioned in their fractured empire scenario, none of that would be true.

Really, I think it's because few of the authors have spent any amount of time in Africa or even disaster zones in America. There should be skyscrapers that are just falling down because no one takes care of them because they are no longer being provided water and power. The abject poverty of the Barrens is never given the attention it deserves.

Shadowrun spends a lot of time criticizing mall culture, ranting about consumerism and social media. But that's not really a thing in places that don't have functioning states. It's trying to be "first world problems" and also "third world problems" at the same time. And you can really only do that if you have a much more important wealth gap between the haves and the have nots than Shadowrun authors are usually comfortable talking about. It should be like Elysium or Battle Angel Alita out there.

-Username17

That reminds me of the first 15 minutes of this episode of Vice, about the Chinese Ghost Towns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trs_udhjWqc

I kind of would love to see areas where entire cities just were abandoned because water was diverted or mana storms made it unfeasible to live there or some B or C level Mega ran out of money building their shining city on a hill.

If SR is partially about places where power and clean water are like big things then it'd be interesting to consider the sanitation and diseases the crop up like they do in parts of Africa.

Interesting postulate by the way concerning that from Guns, Germs, and Steel. Europeans settled Africa from the southern tip up north into the interior. It's proposed that South Africa was reasonably close to Mediterranean Europe so they did alright, but their culture and concentration of population and interconnectedness meant that they started dieing off in massive numbers to cholera and malaria and all those lovely diseases that are associated with the boonies like that. Meanwhile, the native populations were spread out and didn't have nearly as much intermingling so bad outbreaks of Ebola or whatever killed out pockets of population and burned out in the process. It's theorized that the sudden persistent spike of disease is due to the adaptation of European cultural norms and densities.

So taking that and applying something similar to Shadowrun, maybe areas where clean water and shit like that becomes scarce that populations instead of becoming rough barrens kind of scatter into nomadic/tribal groups. Partially to conserve resources now that the environment can't support high population density, but also because if someone contracts Awakened Cholera it only wipes out a couple dozen people instead of a city full.

[Stahlseele]

VITAS alone killed about . . what was it? 20 to 33% of the worlds population?