Hoi, Chummer. What you got there?
Apr. 8th, 2003 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
demiurgentSo last night I start thinking about Shadowrun. Shadowrun was one of those cool games from the early 90’s -- the ones that defied easy description during a flurry of experimentation and progress in the Role Playing form. Was it Cyberpunk? Fantasypunk? Just an excuse for Elves to jack into the net while Dwarves shot sawed off shotguns at killer Insect Shamans? Who cared? It was a blast!
It’s been a long while, and Shadowrun’s in a new, revised edition. I’m friends with one of the current writers, in fact (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ladyjestyr, take a bow and load your Roomsweeper). And I started thinking about it yesterday... thinking about 2011, when the big changes were supposed to come, and suddenly waking up an Elf. (Which isn’t actually how it worked for Elves and Dwarves, if I recall correctly. People spontaneously became Orks and Trolls, but babies were just suddenly born Elves and Dwarves. But damn it, this was idle fantasy so what the Hell.) Quickly, that evolved into an Elvish Cat Shaman, which would suit me. In that fantasy, I pegged some other friends and their changes as well, ultimately pondering rabbi_thor as a Troll who’s either a Bear or Wolf Shaman. We’d make a good pair of Shamans, me all ponsy and Elfish, he burly, making fangs look good, both of us with swords and calling down our lightning on the pig ignorant norms who get in our way....
Anyhow, I figured it was time to renew my acquaintance with Shadowrun, so I drove down to the Friendly Local Game Store (this was the same run I used to grab Sushi -- which actually turned out to be sashimi, when I proved incapable of convincing them I wanted the little blobs of rice that went with, but was still excellent). Now, I like my Friendly Local Game Store. I like the counter people. I like the attitude. It’s a nice place. But one thing I’ve always noticed is that the local gamers who use the tables and otherwise hang don’t exactly chat up visitors or customers. I’ve bought everything from In Nomine stuff to GURPS stuff to D&D3ed to Nobilis to Deadlands there, plus comics galore, and other than chatting with the guy behind the counter I’ve never had much of an impact on the people there.
Picking up Shadowrun 3rd, plus the revised Shadowrun Companion and the Magic in the Shadows supplement, I made my way to the front counter. On my way, one of the regulars at least seventeen years my junior, chatting with a friend and wearing... well, a modern cut Revolutionary War jacket, more or less, glanced and said “Shadowrun?”
I said “yeah. It’s been too long for me.”
He nodded, understandingly. “Cool,” he said.
At the counter, I got into another animated discussion of Shadowrun, which turned into the guy discussing his latest Battletech mechs (FASA, the late, lamented company that originally produced Shadowrun, also created and produced Battletech, among many other excellent games.)
That’s always been Shadowrun’s power. It crosses divides no other game crosses. Runners just accept each other on site. Hell, back in the early nineties, when I was into it the first time around, there was a day I was walking on the Ithaca Commons, trying to remember something out of the Street Samurai Catalog. In those days (and as far as I know even today) there’s generally a pack of disaffected youth on the Commons, hanging out and generally making the Man nervous.
Now, even then I didn’t look like I’d fit in with Disaffected Youth. I’m just too damn whitebread. But walking along the Commons, I noticed they were passing around Shadowrun books. And I just couldn’t remember... well, whatever it was I couldn’t remember. So I shrugged and walked over. Which startled them to no end.
“What?” their leader (I suppose) asked, belligerently.
“You got the Street Samurai Catalog here?” I asked. “There’s something I just can’t remember.”
He paused. “Shadowrun?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
He nodded, understandingly. “Cool.”
It’s been a long while, and Shadowrun’s in a new, revised edition. I’m friends with one of the current writers, in fact (
ladyjestyr, take a bow and load your Roomsweeper). And I started thinking about it yesterday... thinking about 2011, when the big changes were supposed to come, and suddenly waking up an Elf. (Which isn’t actually how it worked for Elves and Dwarves, if I recall correctly. People spontaneously became Orks and Trolls, but babies were just suddenly born Elves and Dwarves. But damn it, this was idle fantasy so what the Hell.) Quickly, that evolved into an Elvish Cat Shaman, which would suit me. In that fantasy, I pegged some other friends and their changes as well, ultimately pondering rabbi_thor as a Troll who’s either a Bear or Wolf Shaman. We’d make a good pair of Shamans, me all ponsy and Elfish, he burly, making fangs look good, both of us with swords and calling down our lightning on the pig ignorant norms who get in our way....Anyhow, I figured it was time to renew my acquaintance with Shadowrun, so I drove down to the Friendly Local Game Store (this was the same run I used to grab Sushi -- which actually turned out to be sashimi, when I proved incapable of convincing them I wanted the little blobs of rice that went with, but was still excellent). Now, I like my Friendly Local Game Store. I like the counter people. I like the attitude. It’s a nice place. But one thing I’ve always noticed is that the local gamers who use the tables and otherwise hang don’t exactly chat up visitors or customers. I’ve bought everything from In Nomine stuff to GURPS stuff to D&D3ed to Nobilis to Deadlands there, plus comics galore, and other than chatting with the guy behind the counter I’ve never had much of an impact on the people there.
Picking up Shadowrun 3rd, plus the revised Shadowrun Companion and the Magic in the Shadows supplement, I made my way to the front counter. On my way, one of the regulars at least seventeen years my junior, chatting with a friend and wearing... well, a modern cut Revolutionary War jacket, more or less, glanced and said “Shadowrun?”
I said “yeah. It’s been too long for me.”
He nodded, understandingly. “Cool,” he said.
At the counter, I got into another animated discussion of Shadowrun, which turned into the guy discussing his latest Battletech mechs (FASA, the late, lamented company that originally produced Shadowrun, also created and produced Battletech, among many other excellent games.)
That’s always been Shadowrun’s power. It crosses divides no other game crosses. Runners just accept each other on site. Hell, back in the early nineties, when I was into it the first time around, there was a day I was walking on the Ithaca Commons, trying to remember something out of the Street Samurai Catalog. In those days (and as far as I know even today) there’s generally a pack of disaffected youth on the Commons, hanging out and generally making the Man nervous.
Now, even then I didn’t look like I’d fit in with Disaffected Youth. I’m just too damn whitebread. But walking along the Commons, I noticed they were passing around Shadowrun books. And I just couldn’t remember... well, whatever it was I couldn’t remember. So I shrugged and walked over. Which startled them to no end.
“What?” their leader (I suppose) asked, belligerently.
“You got the Street Samurai Catalog here?” I asked. “There’s something I just can’t remember.”
He paused. “Shadowrun?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
He nodded, understandingly. “Cool.”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
You may have something here.
Date: 2003-04-08 08:06 am (UTC)Re: You may have something here.
Date: 2003-04-08 08:30 am (UTC)...man, the In Nomine Ethereal Player's Guide has warped my brain...
Re: You may have something here.
Date: 2003-04-08 08:34 am (UTC)That's a bad thing? ;D
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-08 08:08 am (UTC)FWIW,
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-08 11:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-08 04:51 pm (UTC)And yes, The Hordes of the Alone still hang on the Commons, and The Man is still worried. I think they resurrected the "Let's play classical music to scare them off" idea recently.
And Lo, we shall stride among the unwashed, holding before us our mighty Bach as an aural shield, and the unclean shall be driven before us. Testify!
By the by, I think most of them usually still LIKE the classical stuff....
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-09 12:13 pm (UTC)Usually as a Troll Street Samurai.
Need a 3rd?
Kevin