Quote from: KingCheops on March 18, 2021, 11:16:06 PMHonestly we just fell back to Snowcrash with Magic when we wanted gonzo.

The book about language control?

Anyway, the Corporate Structure is actually already pretty stupid. Extraterritoriality is a way to make crimes way easier.
Il just cut down on the infinite corporate resources thing.

Quote from: Omega on March 18, 2021, 07:33:56 PMThe thing with SR's metaplot is that... dramatic revelation ahead... IT IS MEANINGLESS!

I get that. It's just annoying just how much content of the game becomes meaningless because of this.

What content though? The books rarely, if ever, impacted the setting and since I know one of the early writers I can tell you flat out the books could not impact the setting as some were being written as the game was being developed and fleshed out. Later editions make tiny refference to one or two characters. But overall the events in the books have just short of zero effect.

The modules though were a different matter sometimes and could impact later products. But even that was very hit and miss or relegated to the sidebar commentary in the equipment books. The Changeling Comet event was supposed to be a world changer. And yet its actual impact was surprisingly small in later product. Did it even carry over to the next edition?

Quote from: Omega on March 19, 2021, 05:21:09 AMWhat content though?

What I mean is like I want a book of plot hooks or ideas to run a game in, but most of the stories are written with the assumption that the PCs will just mostly watch gormlessly as the real protagonists make the (pointless in the scheme of things) changes.
Maybe guy X way above their station orders them to assist guy Y way above their station to make change Z to a place that is way above their station and they couldn't have any input into even if they wanted to.

I'm reading the Neo-Anarchists guide to North America and despite opening up with a genuine bonified Ancap economics lecture, the rest of the book is filled largely with stuff that's largely pointless or given no follow-through to how the PCs could get involved or make an impact or would care.
"X place is shitty and the corps do whatever they want"....Aight? Where are there adventure hooks to 'fight the power!'?

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 19, 2021, 06:41:11 AM

Quote from: Omega on March 19, 2021, 05:21:09 AMWhat content though?

What I mean is like I want a book of plot hooks or ideas to run a game in, but most of the stories are written with the assumption that the PCs will just mostly watch gormlessly as the real protagonists make the (pointless in the scheme of things) changes.
Maybe guy X way above their station orders them to assist guy Y way above their station to make change Z to a place that is way above their station and they couldn't have any input into even if they wanted to.

I'm reading the Neo-Anarchists guide to North America and despite opening up with a genuine bonified Ancap economics lecture, the rest of the book is filled largely with stuff that's largely pointless or given no follow-through to how the PCs could get involved or make an impact or would care.
"X place is shitty and the corps do whatever they want"....Aight? Where are there adventure hooks to 'fight the power!'?

What do you need to know?  What do you and your group want to do?  You need to have some sort of idea what you want to do before you can figure out how to run it.  This is hack 90's writing -- they don't hold your hand and assume you have some capability at storytelling.

The big thing to start with is the characters since pretty much the entire genre is character focused.  Hence why there's almost no overall effect on any of these settings.  Case gets out of his funk and gets back to being awesome.  Hiro Protagonist saves the world and goes back to being the world's greatest swordsman.  Takeshi kills the Yakuza boss and helps a few people.

X place is shitty and the corps do whatever they want.  Okay, here's the regional manager who encourages all the violence.  Here's the chief abuser in a shift manager who takes sexual advantage.  Here's the penal duty for anyone who steps out of line.

It's an imagination game.  Use your imagination from literally every story you've ever heard, seen or read.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 19, 2021, 01:18:16 AM

Quote from: KingCheops on March 18, 2021, 11:16:06 PMHonestly we just fell back to Snowcrash with Magic when we wanted gonzo.

The book about language control?

Lol okay you lack all imagination.  Yes that's the main storyline but the world is full of extraterritorial corporations.  It is literally a template for gonzo cyberpunk.

Quote from: KingCheops on March 19, 2021, 11:59:42 AMLol okay you lack all imagination.  Yes that's the main storyline but the world is full of extraterritorial corporations.  It is literally a template for gonzo cyberpunk.

This wasn't a snarky 'Lol the one with language control?' I meant it in a 'You mean the grocery store near main street' sort of way.
Chill.

Quote from: KingCheops on March 19, 2021, 11:57:53 AM
What do you need to know?  What do you and your group want to do?  You need to have some sort of idea what you want to do before you can figure out how to run it.  This is hack 90's writing -- they don't hold your hand and assume you have some capability at storytelling.

Il bring up Reign of Steel because I like it as a go too as a miserable place but neat to adventure in. Every zone is filled with 'Here is what could be neat to investigate or could be exploited against the tyrannical mega AI. Here are what their current plans are and their relation to other AI. Here are also the horrors that they will be releasing against the PCs'.

And Reign of Steel is way worse of a place to live than the 6th world. 90% of humanity has been exterminated and 9% live in extermination camps.
But it gets the imagination flowing with ideas or rumors that are relevant to goals the PCs could pursue. And its also a 90s game.

What I mean is that I'm disappointed in Shadowrun's writing because so little of it catches the imagination in adventure hook sort of ways. It's way more concerned with just fluffing out its world, but it doesn't really consider how people are supposed to adventure in it.

I have been looking over book after book, but they just don't provide any hooks. I can of course make my own, but at a certain point I may as well take a few trappings and just run my own game not even set in the Shadowrun world.

Edit: As for what I want to reach....Tone wise the Shadowrun Videogames. Dragonfall & Hong Kong. Great games.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 18, 2021, 06:02:17 PM

Quote from: KingCheops on March 18, 2021, 05:42:00 PMFuchi says hi!

As a great example of status qou.

Because their fall meant utterly buttfuck nothing and was caused by godlike beings and the internal politics of high up executives. As you pointed out - they were replaced by just more largely interchangeable megacorporations.

This has the Star Wars effect - by having one villain just be replaced by another villain it makes the changes that brought it up before futile, and thus makes even the idea of hope from before seem like a false one.

This kind of gets to one of my issues with letting the PCs have major effect on the setting, in general and not just Shadowrun.  So you have your rebellion and the world changes.  Great.  What now?  The players who signed on for a Shadowrun experience are no longer getting it because you're not in the Shadowrun world anymore.  The reams of published game material out there is no longer applicable to your game.  Sound like time to end the campaign.  If you want to keep playing, too bad, we're done.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 19, 2021, 06:41:11 AM

Quote from: Omega on March 19, 2021, 05:21:09 AMWhat content though?

What I mean is like I want a book of plot hooks or ideas to run a game in, but most of the stories are written with the assumption that the PCs will just mostly watch gormlessly as the real protagonists make the (pointless in the scheme of things) changes.
Maybe guy X way above their station orders them to assist guy Y way above their station to make change Z to a place that is way above their station and they couldn't have any input into even if they wanted to.

I'm reading the Neo-Anarchists guide to North America and despite opening up with a genuine bonified Ancap economics lecture, the rest of the book is filled largely with stuff that's largely pointless or given no follow-through to how the PCs could get involved or make an impact or would care.
"X place is shitty and the corps do whatever they want"....Aight? Where are there adventure hooks to 'fight the power!'?

That makes more sense. Its something fairly common with FASA's setting books compared to their modules. The setting books told you usually the big picture and the movers and shakers. But you had to dig to find where the PCs can fit into that. If any at all. I ran into this with the Battle Tech setting books.

Perhaps a little too blank a slate at the adventurer level.

Suggestion then. Take a peak at the old Nights Edge setting for CP2020. Its essentially a SR-esque/WoD-esque setting for SP2020 with a more horror edge to some of it. Possibly check out the Necrology series of loosely connected adventures. 1 - Of Life, Death and Afterwards, 2 - Now I lay me Down to Sleep, and 3 - Immortality. Another might be Survival of the Fittest. The rest cant say much on yet. The whole Nights Edge set was by IANUS who became Dream Pod 9.

Quote from: Mishihari on March 19, 2021, 07:25:55 PMThis kind of gets to one of my issues with letting the PCs have major effect on the setting, in general and not just Shadowrun.  So you have your rebellion and the world changes.  Great.  What now?

Play a new game? The only way to really have an unending world is to have one with no setting or consequences at all. Or maybe make it super low stakes.

This is a 'have your own cake' thing. You can't kill the Dragon without its death impacting the world. If it doesn't why did the PCs kill the Dragon? For pavlovian XP grinding?

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 20, 2021, 11:50:58 AM

Quote from: Mishihari on March 19, 2021, 07:25:55 PMThis kind of gets to one of my issues with letting the PCs have major effect on the setting, in general and not just Shadowrun.  So you have your rebellion and the world changes.  Great.  What now?

Play a new game? The only way to really have an unending world is to have one with no setting or consequences at all. Or maybe make it super low stakes.

This is a 'have your own cake' thing. You can't kill the Dragon without its death impacting the world. If it doesn't why did the PCs kill the Dragon? For pavlovian XP grinding?

It doesn't sound like we're talking about killing Smaug in one little corner of the world here, more about PCs radically changing the nature of the setting.

Quote from: Mishihari on March 20, 2021, 04:29:46 PMIt doesn't sound like we're talking about killing Smaug in one little corner of the world here, more about PCs radically changing the nature of the setting.

I'm a bit confused as to what the problem is unless the players wanna extend a game for longer.