#+SETUPFILE: ../../../template/level-2.org
#+TITLE: Shadowrun Critique
#+DATE: <2013-10-27 Sun 00:00>
#+AUTHOR: vaeringjar
#+EMAIL: vaeringjar@land
#+DESCRIPTION: A commentary on playing Shadowrun. I sent these two emails to friends of mine after playing the Shadowrun pen and paper rpg.
#+KEYWORDS: pop games shadowrum

* 2013-10-26

Hey guys, last night was fun. Hope to play again sometime soon.

Below is a long brainstorm which you guys don't need to read, but I
thought I'd share.

I started reading about Shadowrun 5 on a few sites (below). It looks
cool. And then I started thinking about SR4. I think the main issue I
have with SR4 is the turn/pass system. Though, to date I haven't seen
one that feels perfect.

I think the best approach is to dig into what parts of the game are
independent of each other. Or rather, to treat Shadowrun as a set of
objects, just like one would while writing a program. That way I (or
we) could try many different systems (or make our own systems),
without sacrificing our characters or the SR universe.

The list of elements in any RPG might look like this:

1. The setting
2. The characters
3. The physics (as in game logic)

Obviously the setting is what we like, and there isn't much to
change. The characters are things like the history and the personality
of the character; they would only need changing as per the physics of
a particular SR version. So it comes down to physics. So how would
someone separate characters from physics? It seems like many of the
stats on a character sheet are some kind of measurement. Some of these
won't change with the SR version (though they can change from other
things): height, weight, eye color, etc. But other measurements will
probably change based on the physics, such as Initiative. So the
answer might be that we cannot completely separate characters from
physics, but we can probably reduce the coupling or the dependency
between them. Maybe the solution is to create a new separate sheet
(not that it necessarily needs to be a different piece of paper) for
each thing related to the character.

We could easily break off other things from the character, proper,
such as the possessions. Some possessions affect physics, such as
armor rating, and other possessions might affect how a character acts
(the one ring, albeit outside of the SR universe). I don't think it
needs to be broken down as far as Tyler Durden's "You are not your
job" quote because that's really just saying we are not socially bound
to unchangeable (immutable) labels. I'm all for changing the labels,
but I just want to keep some labels separated from groups they have
nothing to do with.

So all of that being said, I think what I'm most interested in is
decoupling characters from physics as much as possible. That way if we
move to SR5 or back to SR3, it won't matter to anything but the game's
physics. I'll let you guys know if I come up with anything.

- http://amzn.com/1936876515
- http://www.shadowruntabletop.com/2013/02/putting-more-people-on-the-streets-shadowrun-introductory-box-set/
- http://www.catalystgamelabs.com/2012/12/21/the-year-of-shadowrun/

* 2013-10-27

The character creation part of SR is linked to both the physics and
the character, itself. Measuring the characters is easy for some
things (height, weight, etc), but difficult for others. If I said,
"Sir Bohart can pick up 200 lbs," even out-of-universe what does that
really mean? Under what conditions? SR tries to define this with
strength attribute ratings, but that might be too general. In the true
meaning of the word, general means a rule that can be applied to
everything. By saying a rule is too general, however, we show that the
general rule does not cover cases aside from the norm. Freddy
Rodriguez's character in Lady in the Water, who has one buff arm and
one skinny arm, showed us how lopsided a general strength rating can
be.

Most of the metatype constraints (such as maximum or minimum values
for attributes) are really just racist. If a person is short, it isn't
because they are a "dwarf" metatype and also if a person is a "dwarf"
it shouldn't be that they must be short. That is not to say that there
cannot be racism in the game; it is probable that there is racism
in-universe. But out-of-universe, it would be biased to use some of
the metatype constraints. The SR Primer, in the same paragraph, states
both that all metatypes are all genetically human and that there are
several subgroups (H. sapiens nobilis, etc). SR seems to be half-way
to egalitarianism, by removing classes for archetypes (ie, anyone can
carry a gun/sword, as opposed to D&D). But SR still seems to be
relying on racism[1] to describe things that we already know are
common or distributed on a bell curve for SR out-of-universe
humans. What is different, however, is that all of these metatypes
have either low-light or thermalgraphic vision and that some are also
in a state of change; not everyone who is an elf was born an elf (both
metatype and metamorphic! haha!). The out-of-universe, unbiased
solution would be to keep the bell-curve as humans and to treat the
vision abilities as a Positive Quality. Or, forget the bell curve
completely; for example, all elfs now only have either a 5 or 6
Charisma.

Not only does SR sometimes contradict itself, but it contradicts what
we already know to be true. The giant/dwarf labels as far as medical
terms, whether or not they are accurate or politically correct, exist
to describe conditions that make people tall or short. Ignore the
medical conditions for now. The SR notes on giant/dwarf labels in
Norse/Scandinavian folklore is not quite accurate with what we
know. Most monsters in Norse mythology were just "Grendels" or
criminals that were exhiled. They were seen as monsters (as in a
simile). Younger generations changed the simile to metaphor and then
to legend/myth. "Giant" isn't actually a term originally used by Norse
people; it's a Greek word, related to giga- just like the SI "metric
system". (1.21 gigawatts!) Norse people more often would have said
"troll" for the general term, though that contrasts with the SR
conception, though this is only because the general public has
forgotten that elfs, dwarfs, and trolls are from Norse myth/folklore;
SR has adopted them through the lens of D&D which got them from Wagner
and Tolkien, the latter who was a scholar of Norse studies. These
three types in particular have gone through some changes along the
way. For example, the Norse dwarfs, or dvergr or possibly the elf
variations (the Old Norse is "alf") were more like Hebrew Gollems
(animated beings, approximately the same size as their creators) than
Richard Wagner's little people. Obviously there has been no UGE, so we
are not in the same reality. But the question becomes, when do our
universe and the SR universe fork to create two separate universes?
According to the SR Primer, it is probably easiest to fork in the
1990's.

Interesting to note that SR dwarfs are slow(er than humans), Tolkien
dwarfs are fast, but Peter Jackson's Tolkien-dwarfs are slow. A Norse
dwarf would be just like any other human, residing on a bell curve.

We know that there are plenty of cyborgs these days[3], but none of
them are going crazy. In-universe could argue that they don't have
enough cyberware. But out-of-universe, the idea that Essense is all
that keeps a cyborg from going nuts is probably also racist on some
level. As cyberware increases, Essense decreases. What about beings
that are completely biomechanical/electronic? Why are they only NPC
and as rare as a dragon? In a game half based on Blade Runner would it
not have any androids/replicants? In terms of Ridley Scott, only a
small number of replicants go crazy, though all of his sci-fi includes
them going crazy. But to say they are all crazy is racist. It is odd
that Essense and Willpower are not the same, though they both govern
the player's control over the PC's actions. This is a hole in the SR
physics. Or it is magic. Essense and Willpower (or other attributes,
depending on the sorcerer) influence the Magic attribute and the
sorcery abilities. But if they're bidirectionally affected, then
they're either the same thing or the concept of the two discreet
things is flawed somehow. Take a set E for Essense with elements a and
b. Also take a set M for Magic with some element c. Set E and M might
have more elements, but that doesn't matter for now. So for Case1, if
E affects M and M affects E, it could simply be that a affects c and c
affects b. Else, for Case2, if a affects c and c affects a, then
either a and c are the same or they belong in the same set. The only
other thing is that if some other element exists between a->c and
c->a, but really that just means that we're refining either element a
or c as a subset of elements. If not one else can think of another way
that Essense and Magic can affect each other, then I have at least
exhausted the fact that Essense is as a set is false or unfinished by
SR rules, that Essense and Magic are coupled, and that cyberware is
magical. But since we have cyberware out-of-universe, that means that
in-universe something happened. Sorcerers (and the converse
techozombies) almost sound like another metatype, rather than a
completely separate thing. Even the game physics treat Magic as a
Positive Quality.

But even magic has logic either by order or chaos and is governed by
properties, thus physics; out-of-universe ignorance is splilling into
the in-universe game. Both the in-univese and out-of-universe
explanation of magic is simply a change in the physical laws. Haldeman
used this in his book Forever Free. People dispute things, both true
and false. I put it that people in-unverse SR would dispute that
"magic" exists. See Clarke's third law [2].

Another note worth mentioning, is that enough of the SR documentation
is written in first-person. Juxtaposed by the out-of-universe fact
that SR has editions means that it is work in progress. I put it to
everyone that most of the documentation needs to be taken with a grain
of salt. SR documentation is either biased out-of-universe by
ingorance or prejudice, written similarly in-character as someone
in-universe would perceive it, or it is just not finished yet. Even
the Shadowrun Primer is disclaimed as "designed for internal use" and
"ain't proofread".

- [1] for the purpose of this discussion I'm lumping social class and
  stereotype discrimination into this term, not to be confused with
  worker/trades class.
- [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws
- [3]
  http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1kyyg2/iama_amputee_girl_with_bionic_arm_and_bow_from/
