Shadowrun Shadowrun Returns Pre-Release Thread

[evdk]

The votes so far:

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Hong Kong is the only option that would disappoint me, because it would once again result in an abundance of cheap Asian clichés. I really can't stand the inclusion of Asian cities in Western games because of this.

 

[Roguey]

Looks like I'm voting Berlin. Wish I could specifically vote against Hong Kong.

 

[Havoc]

Hong Kong is the only option that would disappoint me, because it would once again result in an abundance of cheap Asian clichés. I really can't stand the inclusion of Asian cities in Western games because of this.

I don't know which I would vote more against: this or another fucking USA USA city. Berlin or London, but Berlin sounds better.

 

[Brayko]

Now wish I did back, if only to vote against Hong Kong. What is wrong with Shadowrun Backers? Makes me question the target fanbase.

 

[Alex]

Hong Kong is the only option that would disappoint me, because it would once again result in an abundance of cheap Asian clichés. I really can't stand the inclusion of Asian cities in Western games because of this.

I agree with the sentiment but... It is Shadowrun we are talking about here. The game where default currency is "new yen" and 3 of the mega-corporations come from Japan. No matter where the game is set, you can be sure some asian cliché will be there.

 

[General Maxson]

They probably consider Hong Kong to be cyberpunkish so that's why there are so many votes for it. And there are hordes of weeaboo fans so it's no wonder they want asia. Maybe even turn shadowrun into a anime game. Oh...
I still haven't got the mail to vote though.

 

[Excidium]

Hong Kong has the coolest background.

 

[SuicideBunny]

mail came, voted berlin due to fond memories of deutschland in den schatten.

 

[Morkar Left]

Voted for more Seattle but I'm fine with Berlin and Hong Kong, too. Instead of Berlin I would have preferred the Rhein-Ruhr-Megasprawl but whatever.

Why the hate for Hong Kong here? This way you can present a totally different cyberpunk culture than you have in the westernized UCAS. I can imagine it makes up for an interesting setting.

... into a anime game...

Stop using such a bad word!

 

[General Maxson]

Truthfully I don't give a shit about which town gets elected as long as they don't make it shallow and retarded. Can we see current status of votes anywhere? As I still didn't put my vote down, and I got the mail so I can vote...

 

[Hobo Elf]

I'll disappointed if we get more Seattle. I mean, come on, really guys? We can get a new city, and you want more Seattle? Vote Berlin!

 

[JudasIscariot]

Berlin sounds a lot more interesting and I don't recall too many RPGs having set foot in Berlin.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

I voted for Lahndan brrrrrap.

 

[Helly]

Voted for my german neighbours, we don't need no blade runner shadowrun.

 

[Psycroptic]

Whatever city is chosen I hope they're wise enough to design this modularly. Then they can do expansions later with other cities.

 

[evdk]

Whatever city is chosen I hope they're wise enough to design this modularly. Then they can do day 1 DLCs with other cities.

fixed

 

[General Maxson]

Voted more Seattle, because my favourite was Chicago, but since it stands no chance I think this is the best choice, as I have a feeling that 2 cities is to much for such a short development time, and it will probably be half assed, so I'd rather have 1 well fleshed out city!

 

[Ulminati]

Hong kong definately had the most interesting fluff in SR3/4. Berlin was pretty much relegated to "Oh, there's anarchists. And Lofwyr."

 

[General Maxson]

Hong kong definately had the most interesting fluff in SR3/4. Berlin was pretty much relegated to "Oh, there's anarchists. And Lofwyr."

Well good thing Hong Kong will probably win then...

 

[OSK]

Hong kong definately had the most interesting fluff in SR3/4. Berlin was pretty much relegated to "Oh, there's anarchists. And Lofwyr."

So you're familiar with the PnP? Could you go into a bit of detail with each of the cities and explain what you like/dislike about them?

 

[Ulminati]

Hong kong definately had the most interesting fluff in SR3/4. Berlin was pretty much relegated to "Oh, there's anarchists. And Lofwyr."

So you're familiar with the PnP? Could you go into a bit of detail with each of the cities and explain what you like/dislike about them?

I played some 2nd, 3rd and 4th edition. It's been a while though since the people I used to GM 4E for all got hooked on burning wheel and kinda dragged me along with them. Off the top of my head:

Berlin: Germany pretty much got taken over by Lofwyr, one of the great dragons, and his megacorporation Saeder-Krupp to a point where "Germany", "Lofwyr" and "Saeder-Krupp" could be used pretty much interchangably. The city didn't really appeal all that much to us and we never bothered with it in my local PnP groups except for a one-shot where we tried to steal the crystal bequeathed to Lofwyr in Dunkelzahns will. (We all died horribly). Most of the background marterial written for Berlin is in shadows of Europe, though snippets exist whenever Lofwyr is mentioned too. It's not really compelling as a runner location since most of the fun in Shadowrun is the squabbling between dozens of factions and Berlin is basically smack in the backyard of a monolithic megacorporation HQ.

Chicago: Was the focal point of a badass series of adventures centered around the Universal Brotherhood (you can find PDFs if paper copies are too hard to track down). Long story short, UB posed as some sort of new-age scientology slash humanitarian place where people came and became happy again. Truth was they were a front for a giant hive of insect spirits who needed human hosts to posess to exist int he real world. Things rapidly went south, the city became quarantined and eventually Ares megacorp detonated a tactical nuke in the middle of the city to take out the hive. Serious wasteland potential here. A lot of background material was written for Chicago, including a full sourcebook as far as I recall.

Denver: When the world turned magic again a bunch of factions rose up which fragmented the ol' US of A. In the north you got UCAS (United american-Canadian Somethingorother), in the south you got NAN (Native American Nations), there's Tir Taingire the faggot elf sanctuary in what used to be California etc. Once the dust settled and the various north american nations had to learn to live with each other, the borders were established and a treaty was signed in Denver. Ad part of the treaty, each of the various factions got a share of Denver as the Treaty City. Since noone realyl trusted the other nations and everyone had seperate ideas on what was legal and what was not, each faction walled off their respective part of Denver turning it into a smuglers paradise. It's also the home of the Nexus, which is the most (in)famous data haven, home to Cap'n Chaos and co. (Think a baddasser version of The Pirate Bay for shadowrunners). There was a long ongiong living campaign centered around Denver (you can find the adventures circularing online in PDF format) that was pretty well written and saw players balancing reputation between a dozen different factions. Like chicago, a decent amount of background material exists for Denver.

Hong Kong:The entire city is built around a leyline nexus and the locals are bigtime into feng shui. A large section of the 4E sourcebook "Runner Havens" is dedicated to hong kong. It's basically like a less faggy neo-Tokyo with all the megacorps and several AA's staking out their claims and a couple of dragons lurking around in the surrounding countryside. I ran a homemade asia campaign out of hong kong that saw my players playing ninja intereor redecorators to disrupt leylines which ultimately resulted in a bunch of toxic spirits being loosed and a 4-way battle around a giant cable car hauling people from the main island to the residential complexes and temples in the mountains on the mainland. Ah, good times. Hong kong is more neon blade runner slash oriental cliche than Seattle, so it'd definately necessitate a new tileset. Berlin could get away with copypastaing the Seattle one, Chicago is basically a nuked seattle and Denver is Seattle with walls.

London: The only source material I know of for London is the 3E Shadows of Europe supplement but I'm pretty certain there's more than that. We never went there in the campaigns I played (closest we got was Tir na nOg, Ireland turned faggy elf sanctuary). The main interesting feature with London is that the famous smog is back with a venegance. Toxic fog turned much of London uninhabitable and large parts of the city has been moved into an extensive underground network inspired by their subway. London (and britain in general) is also frequently mentioned as the breeding ground for magic cabal conspiracies linking back to the Earthdawn campaign setting. A monocle city to be sure.

If I were to have my way, the city preference would be
Copenhagen (See Crash 2.0/Winternight/Shadows of Europe) > Hong Kong > London > One of the faggy elf nations (Tir Taingire) > Chicago > Denver > More seattle > Berlin

 

[evdk]

), there's Tir Taingire the faggot elf sanctuary in what used to be California etc.

Tir Taingire is in what used to be Oregon. California declared independence and promptly got economically taken over by the Japs. I think they kicked them out later, not sure. Also you forgot good old South risen again and Aztlan.

 

[Ulminati]

Aztlan/Aztechnology was covered in "etc" since we know the Azzies are going to be involved regardless of where you go. (Goddamn azzies. Only good thing that ever came out of them was Stuffer Shack). TT is in Oregon though, my bad. Not sure why I thought they were Calif.

 

[OSK]

snip

Awesome. Thanks for the insight.

Denver still sounds like the most interesting to me, but I love lots of factions and reputation systems. Previously, I thought Chicago sounded like the weakest city, but now I'm definitely thinking it's Berlin. It's too bad we'll probably end up with Berlin because of a bunch of decline-incarnate eurofags and potatoes picked it just because its real-world counterpart is the closest to their location, instead of, you know, making an informed decision. This is one time I'm rooting for the weeaboos.