The Shadowrun Situation

[Quantumboost]

But from what I understand genetic manipulation doesn't work, either for mages or technomancers.

Right, because nobody really fundamentally understands how metagenetics works. But they are genetic. People can't do gene therapy in Shadowrun to give you magic powers for the same reason we can't do gene therapy today to make people immortal - they don't know how the mechanisms work well enough to do anything but fuck it all up. It's like a bull in a china shop if the bull were also on fire.

[attackdrone]

Tiny question: is the awakened trait hereditary? I'm wondering whether or not there are any countries in the SR world who attempt eugenics because of this. At the very least, I can imagine the look of disappointment a mage parent would have towards their muggle kid.

I- Get DNA from a mage.

II- Clone the mage.

...

III- Profit.

Assuming that genetics determine magical ability, each corporation or government should have a cloning program designed to churn out mages. Cloning in Shadowrun is cheap, and fairly easy to do. Any corporate entity with more sense than a mud brick would at the very least raise batches of mage-clones from children, raising them in a corporate environment. When they awaken, the corporation has a batch of mages.

A more determined or competent corporation would include techniques (magical or technological) to accelerate the growth of the clones, their awakening, and their acquisition of marketable skills.

In a Shadowrun universe where magic has a genetic basis, every corporation with more than trivial resources should have a significant pool of magical talent. This pool will refresh as new clones come off the assembly line.

On a related topic, the reason I gave my players as to why the Aztlan forces they continued to face included meat bodies was the fact that even though corporeal humanoid soldiers are less reliable and less effective than automated weapons platforms (pain penalties, training), they would still be used to avoid unemployment crises. If you are Aztlan, you would rather continue subsidizing humanoid military forces than deal with a vast unemployment crises inclusive of tens of thousands of well-armed, well-trained soldiers.

Having said that, corporeal humanoid soldiers in my Shadowrun campaign are very much cannon fodder. In losing them, the corporations have to pay less for security. Militaries are not hiring, instead looking to switch over to full front-line automation as soon as socially acceptable. The one exception to this is of course mages. Mages bring a unique talent and must be within line of sight to apply that talent. Sure, fibre-optic cables can be deployed. In some cases mages engage in spellcasting from a hundred kilometers away, securely protected in a bunker, connected by fibre optics. However, fibre optics can be disrupted or cut (read: explosions or knives, not hackers). Another useful tool on the front line are what I shall term "anti-magical assets." Here comes my second example of cloning: Fomori.

A Fomori is naturally resistant to magic (Arcane Arrester) and much more useful than a Gnome (who has the same ability). It would be reasonable to postulate that the clone of a Fomori would be a Fomori, and thus maintain the metatype's resistance to magic. Slap some skillwires and a suite of cyberware on this fellow and out steps a fearsome foe indeed. Thus, elite corporate or government teams of the future will likely consist of Cloned Fomori and Mages, backed up by automated weapons platforms. Riggers or Deckers can load in remotely if needed. Honestly, the only reason to use other forces is due to either increasing social pressure from potentially unemployed militants or economic concerns (it might be less expensive to hire mundane corporeal forces). Pay and employment opportunities will consistently decrease.

In my campaign cloning does not bring the same metagenes (and by extension magic) to the clone; each clone will have a slightly different aura and interaction with astral space, leading to different expressions of metagenes. Cloning still brings Fomori traits along; this allows for the fairly comical example of Aztechnology elite security teams spearheaded by pairs of skillwired Fomori sweepers.

[name_here]

There are a couple other reasons to retain frontline humans:

1. Drones kind of cost money. Specifically, they cost more money than some random dude with a gun.
2. If you don't go with brainhacking waves, there is no possibility of human soldiers getting hacked.

[Lokathor]

Genetics don't determine awakened status as far as anyone has been able to discover, but awakened status is sometimes more common among some bloodlines. Cloning mages doesn't always get a mage, in fact i think it almost never gets a mage. That's the problem.

also, fun with art, astral vision SR 1e cover:

[TheFlatline]

I- Get DNA from a mage.

II- Clone the mage.

...

III- Profit.

It don't work that way. It's kind of like Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principle. The instant you try to artificially create a mage, the act fails. It's kind of a Deus Ex Machina to prevent mages from over-running the setting, but it's been explored, in depth, for years now officially.

In fact, that's the first thing they did with technomancers according to Emergence, to see if that was possible too.

In all likelihood, if someone got right down to showing the man behind the curtain, I'd put money on it being something to do with technology and/or breaking the cycle of nature. Magic has never mixed well with technology (which is part of why that designate spell was so stupid in War), so generally speaking, while a breeding program might produce higher ratios of mages to mundanes, genetic manipulation including cloning doesn't that I'm aware of.

Edit: Speaking of technomancers, were they even in books like War? I mean, the idea of sending someone into a building who scans absolutely clean, right down to a personal inventory of their commlink, but able to screw up entire computer systems, seems pretty potent an ability in a war. It seems like the official line is to kind of pretend they don't exist in preference to *more* dragon porn and magical artifacts.

[Fucks]

The only previous mentions are about how VITAS wiped out large parts of the population and how common ghouls where in the rural parts (both from the SR2 BBB).

Seriously, this. India is a federalist state with widely different sub-units right now. The fact that it hasn't balkanised already is a minor miracle.

Combine that and you have India 2073 that makes sense. It's a shame that Peter Taylor didn't do research or ignored it.

Still, I don't see the issue with 10 million mages in India when there are 1 billion people living there, based on the SoA fluff. Numbers in India are huge and hard to believe for Westeners, so what?

[Orion]

the issue isn't with 10 million mages in in the Indian subcontinent, it's with 10 million mages with standardized training and education under the command of one organization. Think of the ritual spells! Anybody with that many mages on tap would be a major world power, whose interests and activities would be turning up in the world histories and in the affairs of the AAAs.

[Username17]

Still, I don't see the issue with 10 million mages in India when there are 1 billion people living there, based on the SoA fluff. Numbers in India are huge and hard to believe for Westeners, so what?

The problem isn't that there are 10 million mages in India. Of curse there are 10 million mages in India. The problem isn't that they have fusion bombs, they have fusion bombs now, so of course they have them in the future. The problem is that "India" was left in pretty much one piece. It's the 7th most powerful nation on Earth now according to most top ten lists. All the other countries on the top ten list got hacked to pieces except Japan and Brazil, who are amongst Shadowrun's big three world powers.

The problem is 0% the resources described as being in India. The problem is 100% that all of those resources are described as being in one super powerful country that miraculously never got mentioned earlier. It's bad enough that they pulled out the Khalistan nuclear war that apparently no one noticed earlier, but the weather controlling super power that no one bothered to mention is a bit much. Because major events in history fail to come up all the time, Shadowtalkers had many times talked about what powerful nations did or thought about specific situations, and never once mentioned India in the same breath as Japan.

India would have had to be chopped up into at least four countries. Remember: even Indonesia is an assload of countries. Jakarta, Java, and Borneo are in three different countries. And New Guinea and Bali are separate countries too. There are very obviously no countries left with a billion people in them, or anything close when you read descriptions of the political power of Amazonia and Imperial Japan. India having all their modern stuff stuff plus magic simply does not fit with the rest of the setting as described at all.

-Username17

[Fucks]

I totally agree that India should have received a different write-up in SoA.

[Neurosis]

You're working for the company, you're a company man. If the company is bad, that makes you a bad guy company man.

And CGL is bad.

But CGL creates Shadowrun, which is good or has been good in the past and can be good again. In a way, working for CGL seems like a more efficient, productive, reachable way of "fixing" Shadowrun than, I don't know, hoping really hard that Loren Coleman dies in a fire.

I mean it seems really clear at this point that CGL is keeping the license. Why not try to work for change within the system? If a fan who is dissatisfied with the direction of SR starts writing for SR (hence, working for CGL, as CGL is still publishing SR) as their way of working to fix the problem, does that make them a "bad guy company man"?

I'm not specifically defending Critias, by the way, I'm just responding to the generalization I quoted.

Interesting. I personally don't have a problem with anyone that thinks the owner/management teams are shit - there's ample evidence for that - but shitting on independent freelancers coming after the shitstorm to work in the vacuum created by the previous talent disappearing I can't get on board with.

A lot of people want to write for RPGs and it sounds like a good opportunity with a relatively desperate owner.

The alternative is expecting a total freelancer's boycott of SR and waiting for the line to die, hopefully to be picked up by someone else, a series of events with a timeline of maybe three years. To me that doesn't sound good for the game.

Basically, I agree with mean_liar.

[TheFlatline]

You're working for the company, you're a company man. If the company is bad, that makes you a bad guy company man.

And CGL is bad.

But CGL creates Shadowrun, which is good or has been good in the past and can be good again. In a way, working for CGL seems like a more efficient, productive, reachable way of "fixing" Shadowrun than, I don't know, hoping really hard that Loren Coleman dies in a fire.

I mean it seems really clear at this point that CGL is keeping the license. Why not try to work for change within the system? If a fan who is dissatisfied with the direction of SR starts writing for SR (hence, working for CGL, as CGL is still publishing SR) as their way of working to fix the problem, does that make them a "bad guy company man"?

I'm not specifically defending Critias, by the way, I'm just responding to the generalization I quoted.

In a perfect world, you could do that. But a freelancer has zero influence over the company itself. In fact, in an LLC (which CGL/IMR is), if you're not one of the partners, you have zero say in how the company is run. You have zero say in how/if you get paid outside of arbitration/the court system. You have zero say or influence in the morality of the people in charge. Hell, you have zero say in what happens to your work as soon as you write it. You certainly don't have any say in the quality of the end product.

100% of everything a person might hate about CGL is beyond that person's control or influence. The work you turn in might be quality, but it could easily get edited into looking like shit, so you can't even say "I turn in quality material". The line dev may ask for shit material to begin with and will go with someone else if you don't toe that line.

If you don't like the ethics of CGL, joining their ranks on their terms isn't going to change a goddamn thing. If you have a problem, the only option is to boycott the game, and convince people around you to boycott the game if they agree with you.

PS: CGL didn't "create" Shadowrun, and the material they've put out since people walked out on them has been shit and of a level of professionalism that boarders on insultingly amateur. CGL has a very large pool of talent that it *could* choose from, if it chose to be aggressive and adhere to high standards. It chooses not to though.

Edit 2: If CGL was cranking out quality work, or even if the authors were slightly humble about what they were doing, I could at least be content with them. But they turn out amateur work, and then go out of their way to excuse it after the fact. I actually refused to read Critas' response to any critique I wrote beyond a line or tw, because in the real world of professional writing, paying customers don't get to have that kind of behind the scenes justification that he pushed out. You get what the author puts on the page, and that's it. And judging that, it's sorely lacking.

The hubris I blame on the freelancers. The shit quality of the work I blame on the people in charge. And I don't see that changing any time soon. I'd rather see Shadowrun die off completely, quickly, than let it get shitty book after shitty book until the line becomes totally irrelevant.

[Neurosis]

"Creates" was a really shitty choice of words, but I didn't mean "create" which would have been much shittier. "Makes" is what I should have said.

Anyway, the freelancers actually write the game, and afaik every Shadowrun line developer from the later days of FASA onwards has come from the pool of freelancers, and in turn, from the pool of fans. I think (conservatively) that any given SR freelancer has a better chance (while not a certainty) of (one day) influencing the ongoing development of SR going forward than say, Frank Trollman. Since most likely, it's going to be CGL that makes Fifth Edition.

If you want to change the way Shadowrun is made out of (for instance) loving the game/universe more than you hate LLC, I think that there are worse decisions you could make than becoming a CGL scab. It's not like if (for instance) a miracle occured and FT somehow went to work for Jason Hardy (you don't have to tell me that would never fucking happen) his work would immediately turn to shit.

I agree that bad management and editing can detrimentally effect good writing, but if anything "laissez faire" is how I'd describe Hardy's editorial style. He seems more of a nodder than a meddler. But it's impossible to say for certain whether the writing or the editing or both has been responsible for the poor quality of recent Shadowrun products.

[Neurosis]

I understand your point (after edits) but I think things could conceivably get better too, I don't think that CGL is trapped in a downward spiral into awful shittown. The freelance talent pool might actually get better over time, especially the ones who know and love Shadowrun.

My problem with CGL has honestly not BEEN quality of work (I like a lot of the 4E stuff, including Ghost Cartels and the more recent Corporate Guide; neither are flawless, but both have good stuff in them). It was their business decisions, shafting freelancers like Bobby and the nonsensical, inexplicable decision to maintain Loren Coleman as the face of the company after he was more-or-less convicted of embezzlement in the court of public opinion. That was what I had a problem with.

I don't think that the writing in recent CGL problems is the second coming by any means but I think that Frank's bias is amazingly glaring. His reviews are super amusing to read, and I'll concede that they make good points, but I don't think they're fair in any way, shape, or form. Are there bad parts? Sure. Is it all as completely and unsalvageably awful as Frank makes it out to be? Probably not.

[Orion]

Refusing to work there and waiting for CGL to die may not be good for the game, and it may not be likely to work, but it is the only ethical option. Doing business with known fraudsters is wrong.

[TheFlatline]

I don't think that the writing in recent CGL problems is the second coming by any means but I think that Frank's bias is amazingly glaring. His reviews are super amusing to read, and I'll concede that they make good points, but I don't think they're fair in any way, shape, or form. Are there bad parts? Sure. Is it all as completely and unsalvageably awful as Frank makes it out to be? Probably not.

I never mentioned Frank's reviews. In fact, I was told to read the teaser for Attitude, and it was bad enough, and poorly edited enough, that I had no desire to read the rest of it.

I wasn't exaggerating when I said that there was grammatical, structural, and narrative issues that you don't see in a high school creative writing class, and this is paid, professional work.

Here's the thing. As a freelancer, you're given an assignment to write so many words about such and such a topic incorporating certain details. If those elements are shit, your work is going to be shit too. Plus, unless you're a poet or pay out of your own pocket for an editor, it doesn't appear that you'll get much substantial editing or critical feedback (and literary feedback has always been some of the harshest out there).

And according to Ancient History, even if you do turn in something decent, the dev could insert... whatever... into it, mangle it, and push it out, citing it as your work without your opportunity to even look at it.

Let's put it this way: Let's say you fall in love with a car that's owned by a shop who wants you to buy the car. This shop used to do great work, but the owners managed to run off all the mechanics you used to trust, and hired on new ones. You've seen three cars come out of that shop knocking, pinging, and with spray paint all over the engine block. Are you going to buy this car? That aside, do you really think you could get a job there and do quality work compared to the rest of the mechanics when it seems like the owners just don't give a shit?

[Neurosis]

Refusing to work there and waiting for CGL to die may not be good for the game, and it may not be likely to work, but it is the only ethical option. Doing business with known fraudsters is wrong.

Not to be overly cynical, but do you have any idea how few career options it leaves you if you refuse to ever deal with anyone who may be a crook? It's a fucked up world out there.

Let's put it this way: Let's say you fall in love with a car that's owned by a shop who wants you to buy the car. This shop used to do great work, but the owners managed to run off all the mechanics you used to trust, and hired on new ones. You've seen three cars come out of that shop knocking, pinging, and with spray paint all over the engine block. Are you going to buy this car? That aside, do you really think you could get a job there and do quality work compared to the rest of the mechanics when it seems like the owners just don't give a shit?

Let's go with the analogy.

No, I probably wouldn't buy the car. But if I really loved the car, and this was the only place the car was made, I was confident in my skills as a mechanic and I'd always dreamed of being a professional mechanic? I think I might get the job. I understand why people become "scabs", especially during a "depression" like we're currently in. I mean I imagine a chance to supplement your income by writing the same amount of words for SR that you'd be writing anyway, just for fun, is a good thing

Dropping the analogy entirely now:

I mean, worst case scenario, your prospective scab get paid to produce something awful, made worse by the editing, and it's out and published for all to see, and for Frank Trollman & co. to write scathing reviews of. This is a really bad outcome, except for the "I get paid" part of it.

The best case scenario, would be that the scab would create something that, even after the editing process, is at least moderately less shitty, and uplifts the quality of the line as a whole by at least one tick.

In either case the scab would hopefully learn a bit about the craft of writing.

Also, the younger generation of freelancers, if you can give them the benefit of the doubt, by going to work for Shadowrun are providing at least a chance for a new generation of developers that aren't corrupt, incompetent or both. Of course, I think for that they should be receptive to criticism, not all "nuh-uh, it's great!". But it's hard to be receptive to "this is shit and you are a terrible writer".

[kzt]

I mean, worst case scenario, your prospective scab get paid to produce something awful, made worse by the editing, and it's out and published for all to see, and for Frank Trollman & co. to write scathing reviews of. This is a really bad outcome, except for the "I get paid" part of it.

My impression is that CGL pays less that what you would earn working at McDonalds for the same number of hours, if you include all the time you need to spend on CGL BS you don't get paid for. And McDonalds cuts you a check on time, every time.

But I might be wrong.

[Fuchs]

Shadowrun is made, duh. It's not as if you'll lose your game if you refuse to buy shit from CGL. You don't need CGL to play Shadowrun either.

But if you help them produce shit you'll help them ruin the game's rep, and that's far more dangerous to the goal of keeping it alive and gettinge new players.

[Neurosis]

That's an interesting point, Fuchs. But isn't (to risk repeating myself) the other side of that that if people who are talented and enthusiastic don't help, CGL will run the game into the ground and kill the property?

It's true I can play 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th edition Shadowrun even if new content is awful or not being released, but I want to see quality new product get made.

Note that I'm less "taking a position" here and more playing devil's advocate. I don't necessarily have a stance in this, as you'll see going back to my posts earlier in the thread.

My impression is that CGL pays less that what you would earn working at McDonalds for the same number of hours, if you include all the time you need to spend on CGL BS you don't get paid for. And McDonalds cuts you a check on time, every time.

What I've heard/read doesn't seem to indicate that this is actually true, but then again I don't know what working at McDonalds actually pays. Is it still like minimum wage these days?

[TheFlatline]

I mean, worst case scenario, your prospective scab get paid to produce something awful, made worse by the editing, and it's out and published for all to see, and for Frank Trollman & co. to write scathing reviews of. This is a really bad outcome, except for the "I get paid" part of it.

Except... for years... people *didn't* get paid. While the owner accidentally apurpose like "co-mingled" funds.

You get that right? I mean, you understand that basic fact. People weren't getting paid while the guy at the top bought a fucking mansion. And you think it's cool to trust someone who does business like this? Because hey it's Shadowrun?

God you're an idiot. You're not playing devil's advocate, you're leaking derp all over the place. You're arguing that it's better to place yourself in a position to be scammed, with people who have acted highly questionably legally, who have already turned over the old crew that was turning out quality product than do what's right, than to let a fucking game property lapse into out of print status.

What kind of fucked up priorities is that? That's like saying... I can't even come up with an analogy of what that much concentrated derp is like.

[Stahlseele]

Heads up folks, question from me:
anybody still remember the pdf for SR3 riggers with stats for things like a motorized wheelchair, the parrot drone, a toy tank, a deflateable boat, a howitzer and the diesel locomotive?
i am kinda at the end of my search algorithms and i can't, for the life of me, find it . . it WAS on the official shadowrun page, back when it was still fanpro/fasa i think . .
anybody know?
anybody have?
it was free to download too <.<

[fectin]

Genetics is a little wierd, and I suspect that it doesn't work like anyone here thinks it works (me included).

For example, assume that mageyness is influnced by in utero hormone levels (just like any number of other traits). Is it genetic? Depends what you mean. Clearly, genetic makeup will influence that. Offspring DNA might well affect hormone sensitivity, and the mother's DNA might affect hormone levels. "Cloning" is a bit of a misnomer, since (at least for now, as I understand it) it is purely replacing the DNA of an existing egg, and reimplanting it in a surrogate mother.

Then there's wierd things like mitochondrial DNA. I have no idea how that plays in.

TL;DR: It is entirely reasonable for mageyness to be hereditary and still not duplicable.

[Archmage]

Genetics is a little wierd, and I suspect that it doesn't work like anyone here thinks it works (me included).

For example, assume that mageyness is influnced by in utero hormone levels (just like any number of other traits). Is it genetic? Depends what you mean.

No, your example is evidence that you don't know anything about genetics. If a fetus's development is altered by mom's hormones, that's environmental influence, not genetic influence.

[Neurosis]

You're arguing that it's better to place yourself in a position to be scammed, with people who have acted highly questionably legally, who have already turned over the old crew that was turning out quality product than do what's right, than to let a fucking game property lapse into out of print status.

Basically, you are making these statements as unmitigated absolutes when there are points of reasonable doubt and exceptions. It's not that what you're saying is completely invalid, it's just that it's not any kind of absolute truth. At least not that much more than with most internet work-for-hire situations.

Even Bobby admits that they're ostensibly doing a much better job of paying the freelancers after the big fiasco last year. So I don't think an unqualified statement like "place yourself into a position to be scrammed" is wholly accurate.

Likewise, I don't think that "turned over the old crew that was turning out quality product" is entirely accurate either. Several talented freelancers from as far back as third edition are still involved in the creation of the game, aren't they? There's a lot who left, but there's a few who stayed.
I can try to piece together lists of names for both categories, or someone more knowledgeable than me can.

I will admit that you've got me on one point. SR lapsing into out of print status really should not be a big deal for anyone. I am just unreasonably attached to the game. When I thought it had gone out of print during the death of FASA I was very distraught, and when I learned that it was still being made later on by Fanpro, I was very relieved. I know intellectually that the game going out of print isn't a big deal--it doesn't stop me or anyone from playing it, and besides it's just a game. But emotionally, well, as you said, herp and also derp.

[fectin]

Genetics is a little wierd, and I suspect that it doesn't work like anyone here thinks it works (me included).

For example, assume that mageyness is influnced by in utero hormone levels (just like any number of other traits). Is it genetic? Depends what you mean.

No, your example is evidence that you don't know anything about genetics. If a fetus's development is altered by mom's hormones, that's environmental influence, not genetic influence.

Okay. So what determines mom's hormone concentrations? What determines baby's sensitivity to that hormone?

I think your response is pretty good evidence for my original statement.