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edit: This question was answered on the last page, and pretty much how I expected it. This was a shameful start to a new page, so I'd like to express that this is one of the most interesting threads in this whole subforum on account of the wonderfully realized world of Shadowrun. Cyberpunk is such a fantastic aesthetic - I think it really speaks to the anxieties incumbent in modern society. David Corbett fucked around with this message at 03:07 on May 14, 2018 |
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May 14, 2018 02:59
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We live in the worst, most boring of all possible Cyberpunk timelines. It's no wonder people like the genre so much.
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May 14, 2018 03:28
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I dont know posted:It must suck to be a chicken shape shifter. It's way preferable to being a regular chicken. The Lone Badger fucked around with this message at 04:22 on May 14, 2018 |
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May 14, 2018 03:38
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People with lovely passwords will be the reason the bombs launch. That or the Trump going on a tantrump
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May 14, 2018 03:39
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I'd like to know more about why Mages Inc. hate the elves so much. I know very little about Shadowrun, but I'd garnered that elves are generally very magically adept.wiegieman posted:We live in the worst, most boring of all possible Cyberpunk timelines. It's no wonder people like the genre so much. We basically get all of the Immiserated Capitalist Dystopia with none of the Kickin' Rad Gadgets. I actually saw another post on this forum, but in another thread, referencing some source where the popularity of cyberpunk, which was once huge, has dropped off massively due to the fact that the real world is starting to resemble it too much. It's not hard to see the similarities between the modern world and those types of chromed-out hellscapes, minus the cool bits.
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May 14, 2018 04:02
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JustJeff88 posted:I'd like to know more about why Mages Inc. hate the elves so much. I know very little about Shadowrun, but I'd garnered that elves are generally very magically adept. The only things I know about Shadowrun come from this thread and the previous one, but since elves seem to be genetically predisposed towards smugness in every fantasy setting they pop up in, having ones that are powerful wizards and immortal too would make anyone hate them.
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May 14, 2018 04:18
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JustJeff88 posted:I'd like to know more about why Mages Inc. hate the elves so much. I know very little about Shadowrun, but I'd garnered that elves are generally very magically adept. Unlike the dystopian future of the 1980s and early 1990s, ours is probably most shocking in its sheer _banality_. It is the ongoing triumph of managerial efficiency over inefficiency, viz. the entire human experience. Instead of mirrored shades, glittering chrome, and pumping synthwave, we got a wage slave stamping on a spreadsheet - forever. White Coke posted:The only things I know about Shadowrun come from this thread and the previous one, but since elves seem to be genetically predisposed towards smugness in every fantasy setting they pop up in, having ones that are powerful wizards and immortal too would make anyone hate them. Understandable; if I lived in Shadowrun, I'm pretty sure that I'd want to kill a magical immortal wizard elf just on spec. David Corbett fucked around with this message at 04:31 on May 14, 2018 |
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May 14, 2018 04:28
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I started mildly dissociating at work the other night and mentally joked about it to myself as "Man, this download bait-and-switched me, this was supposed to be a simsense recording of a shadowrunner on a job, not 12 hours of 'wageslave assembles boxes'."
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May 14, 2018 04:35
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JustJeff88 posted:I'd like to know more about why Mages Inc. hate the elves so much. A combination of them being some of the competition, and also knowing the Lodge exists. A great way to get yourself on the Black Lodge's hit list is for them to know that you're aware they exist without you being a member.It should be noted that the Lodge's membership is kind of absurdly huge for a magical org in Shadowrun. Part of this is that they're believed to be one of the few groups to retain a knowledge and practice of magic during the fifth world.
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May 14, 2018 04:38
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The Elves (and when Elves are acting as a group, it's the Immortal Elves) are assholes who think everyone else deserves to be some kind of subservient animal at worst, and a second class citizen at best. Everybody kind of hates them, but the Black Lodge are competent and knowledgeable enough to get very insulted by that attitude.
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May 14, 2018 04:43
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wiegieman posted:However, even ten thousand magicians working together won't get you world domination in the Sixth World -- they're nowhere near as powerful as the megacorps. The newest Shadowrun lore book had a run down of suspected Black Lodge members in the upper echelons of every AAA mega and a bunch of important nation states as presented by one of the magician shadowtalkers, so they're there in the background, plotting stuff and maliciously rubbing their hands together. At least, if I was reading that chapter right, most of it flew right over my head.
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May 14, 2018 06:03
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David Corbett posted:Unlike the dystopian future of the 1980s and early 1990s, ours is probably most shocking in its sheer _banality_. It is the ongoing triumph of managerial efficiency over inefficiency, viz. the entire human experience. Instead of mirrored shades, glittering chrome, and pumping synthwave, we got a wage slave stamping on a spreadsheet - forever. We're lacking the punk part of cyberpunk, the counterculture fighting back against the banalities and petty tyrannies of the powers that be. Stuff like this:    Hairstyles and facepaint designed specifically to defeat the most commonly used facial-recognition algorithms.
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May 14, 2018 06:10
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IMJack posted:We're lacking the punk part of cyberpunk, the counterculture fighting back against the banalities and petty tyrannies of the powers that be. Stuff like this: Cool as that is in concept, I am not gonna look THAT punchable
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May 14, 2018 06:24
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IMJack posted:We're lacking the punk part of cyberpunk, the counterculture fighting back against the banalities and petty tyrannies of the powers that be. Stuff like this: Of course you've defeated the facial-recognition camera but now every cop around is going to be keeping an eye on you.
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May 14, 2018 06:39
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Not a fan of that mission personally. It felt like the GM has to let everyone know they're so goddamned clever by forcing you into a black box situation with crap party members; the "twist" would be just as memorable with your normal party (perhaps more so), but a normal party might not jump through all of these contrived hoops to reach the end so we have this instead.
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May 14, 2018 07:12
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Really, it’s our own drat fault for doing the exact thing that got Monika killed and working for a Johnson our fixer didn’t vet first. Fixers are important, don’t neglect them.
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May 14, 2018 07:25
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Fun Black Lodge Facts: The head of the Black Lodge is called the Penulimate Master. A title that raises obvious and ominous questions.
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May 14, 2018 07:31
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White Coke posted:The only things I know about Shadowrun come from this thread and the previous one, but since elves seem to be genetically predisposed towards smugness in every fantasy setting they pop up in, having ones that are powerful wizards and immortal too would make anyone hate them. My dude have you heard the good news about Glorantha? In it, Elves are literally trees and are the least smug creatures around.
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May 14, 2018 08:36
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paragon1 posted:Fun Black Lodge Facts: The head of the Black Lodge is called the Penulimate Master. A title that raises obvious and ominous questions. Like why an organization that old still hasn't figured out what "Penultimate" means.
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May 14, 2018 09:16
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If your elves aren't smug they aren't elves. In this case, they're trees.
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May 14, 2018 09:18
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Josef bugman posted:My dude have you heard the good news about Glorantha? In it, Elves are literally trees and are the least smug creatures around. Glorantha is great, and there's a darn good reason why LPs of King of Dragon Pass did so well here.
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May 14, 2018 10:41
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IMJack posted:Hairstyles and facepaint designed specifically to defeat the most commonly used facial-recognition algorithms. Holy hell that website draws from a truly baffling wellspring. But yeah I don't think it's a real surprise that cyberpunk happened without the punk, the real world is pretty consistently boring compared to the fiction- that is the job of fiction after all, to be exciting. Also real evil functions like WalMart; you do things that are bad because they make you rich, but not that bad because you employ lots of people who aren't bad, and also have to have mass appeal. Aztechnology is not real so they don't have to deal with those limitations. Hence, cyberpunk without the extremes. edit: p.s. I don't post a lot in this thread but I do read it a lot and the LP is  and so are all the people who are super knowledgeable about Shadowrun.  all the way.
aniviron fucked around with this message at 11:13 on May 14, 2018 |
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May 14, 2018 11:11
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Josef bugman posted:My dude have you heard the good news about Glorantha? In it, Elves are literally trees and are the least smug creatures around. Dwarves, OTOH, are assholes.
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May 14, 2018 11:20
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chiefnewo posted:Of course you've defeated the facial-recognition camera but now every cop around is going to be keeping an eye on you. Just tell you came from a [insert hipster music party]. I have seen people on goa festivals, who almost looked like those photos.
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May 14, 2018 11:40
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The Lone Badger posted:Dwarves, OTOH, are assholes. IIRC, the Mostali (dwarves) are immortals, basically automatons with a mechanical society, no sense of family, and their one goal is to repair the dead world machine. And to hunt down anyone who messes with them or steals their secrets. Dwarves are not nice to have around.
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May 14, 2018 11:44
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Anticheese posted:IIRC, the Mostali (dwarves) are immortals, basically automatons with a mechanical society, no sense of family, and their one goal is to repair the dead world machine. And to hunt down anyone who messes with them or steals their secrets. Just sounds like the typical big megacorp with illusions of world domination in shadowrun/Google to me. Do they offer good healthcare? Are they hiring? OutofSight fucked around with this message at 12:10 on May 14, 2018 |
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May 14, 2018 11:59
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OutofSight posted:Just sounds like the typical big megacorp with illusions of world domination in shadowrun/Google in irl to me. Do they offer good healthcare? They will return any behaviour you have towards them in kind. If you "positive" them, they will "positive" you/try to help you back. You do not want to know what happens if you piss them off...So, yeah, pretty megacorpy again. Also, don't eat the dwarf food.
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May 14, 2018 12:04
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HeroQuest and Shadowrun are both great games, but they're such polar opposites that it's hard to compare them. HQ is about telling big mythical stories, and SR is about telling action-y personal ones.
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May 14, 2018 14:15
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wiegieman posted:HeroQuest and Shadowrun are both great games, but they're such polar opposites that it's hard to compare them. HQ is about telling big mythical stories, and SR is about telling action-y personal ones. I mean often big mythological ones can be combined to make personal ones, but I understand. It is the only setting where dragons are more powerful than shadowrun though.
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May 14, 2018 14:25
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Not to bring this thread too much into Glorantha, but wasn't there a society in-setting that (IIRC) made a giant (as in, a race of creatures that are pretty big) birthing-then-killing machine to exploit the fact that they almost always dropped rare loot? I think they were called the God Learners...?
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May 14, 2018 14:45
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JustJeff88 posted:We basically get all of the Immiserated Capitalist Dystopia with none of the Kickin' Rad Gadgets. I mean, we do have the kickin' rad gadgets, though. They're called smartphones, iPads and drones, and they'd have blown the minds of people playing OG first release Shadowrun in 1989.
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May 14, 2018 14:48
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HardDiskD posted:Not to bring this thread too much into Glorantha, but wasn't there a society in-setting that (IIRC) made a giant (as in, a race of creatures that are pretty big) birthing-then-killing machine to exploit the fact that they almost always dropped rare loot? Sort of. They built a place called Rob-cradle a settlement built to break down the gigantic ships the giants were sending to the ocean with their kids. They then killed the giant baby and any associated helpers, took over the cradle and stole all the magical artefacts. When the giants found out this was happening they are not pleased and proceed to flatten the entire place with extreme prejudice. The God Learners were kind of like if people like Jordan Peterson got access to cosmic power. They were convinced that everything could and should be catalogued and that everything fitted neatly into prearranged patterns so there was no difference between all the Sky Fathers and Earth Mothers so it was fine to swap them around. This ended poorly for them. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 15:21 on May 14, 2018 |
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May 14, 2018 14:57
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Their name comes from the fact that they were a society of the worst kind of min-maxers and imperialists you could hope to dream up. See, in Glorantha, the gods and their deeds are real. Getting totally smashed and reenacting them while powered up on magic will transport you to the god-plane, where the quester will gain a greater appreciation for their faith, and usually some kind of reward on a successful completion. This gets a little tricker because in Glorantha, things can be many things. Orlanth the chief of the Storm Tribe of gods, wind, thunder, a wise king, an impudent rebel, and I'm pretty sure a lion in some cultures. All of these things are literally and simultaneously true, which led the God Learners to try and figure this stuff out by plundering many cultures for their sacred myths so they could construct a unified theory of religion (amongst other things). The problem, colonialism aside, is that Glorantha just doesn't work that way. On top of messing things up by trying to prove some Earth goddesses were the same by swapping them around in a story (as one blog puts it, one region suffered crippling divorce rates, and the other a terrible famine), they had the kind of hubris that led them to thinking it would be A-OK to mass-produce sacred artifacts (like the one true sword, which is Death and also maybe literally the god of death), they raised up a mechanical god of their own making. By doing this, the God Learners messed things up so badly that on top of them sending the world into chaos with their meddling and fundamental misunderstanding of how the universe worked, the real gods basically broke the rules keeping them out of mortal time and space to personally nuke them. And that, dear reader, is why you shouldn't minmax unless everyone at the table is on board with your style of play. Half-remembered Glorantha lore is amazingly fun to write about when you're super tired.
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May 14, 2018 15:27
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chiasaur11 posted:Like why an organization that old still hasn't figured out what "Penultimate" means. If I ran an evil organization, I would definitely call myself "Number Two" or something similar just to gently caress with people and keep them guessing who the REAL leader is. I mean hell, The Prisoner comic follow up implies that's exactly what was happening in that show. AceOfFlames fucked around with this message at 18:56 on May 14, 2018 |
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May 14, 2018 16:17
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Who does Number Two work for? Edit: Some of the supposed facial recognition defeating paint is a lot more cyberpunk, though.  
girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 18:31 on May 14, 2018 |
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May 14, 2018 18:22
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chiasaur11 posted:Like why an organization that old still hasn't figured out what "Penultimate" means. They know exactly what it means. Hence the ominous and obvious question being, among others "So who's the ultimate master then?" There, I've explained the post, thus killing it. Good job.
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May 14, 2018 18:35
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PMush Perfect posted:Who does Number Two work for? I really like the one on the right because you can see it being done by a futuristic machine or robot that generates a random pattern every time to make it useless for the recognition software to save your face for future comparison.
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May 14, 2018 19:01
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I think the (goofy but cool) cyberpunk face-detection makeup has already been supersede and obsoleted by some hats with built in LEDs and a little computer that can project light onto the wearer's face in such a way as to replicate any other face it has in its database. I think the article I glanced at said it could already reliably fool face recognition software, which is pretty wicked.
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May 14, 2018 19:09
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It's not cyberpunk unless you're live hacking every camera in a 500m radius as you walk down the block 
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May 14, 2018 19:55
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"Roll disguise." Several exploding 6s later... "Your baffling make-up causes a stack overflow in the surveillance software and shorts out the entire system."
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May 14, 2018 20:02
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