Shadowrun – Mixing The Flavors

Since my Star Wars and Renegade Horizon games have had to cancel the last couple sessions due to scheduling conflicts, I might as well follow up my last Shadowrun post with another one. Although I previously mentioned starting with an overview of the campaign and talking about characters, I realized that starting with my vision of the Shadowrun world and how I will be running it would be a better place to start.

There are a number of people who don’t like the Shadowrun setting due to its mix of genres. For them the inclusion of fantasy in their cyberpunk is like the ice cream in their Pizza. Normally I’d agree with them, but there’s an additional factor that has to be taken into account – Earthdawn.

I’ve been a fan of Earthdawn for years – ever since that game was created back in ’93. Earthdawn has a rich setting and intricate metaplot that I have enjoyed tremendously and part of that metaplot is Earthdawn’s connection to the Shadowrun setting. While that doesn’t mean that all of my Shadowrun games will feature blatant references to Earthdawn the ability to make occasional references to some of the connections between the games – even if the players aren’t aware of them – makes the game more enjoyable for me. So while there won’t be immortal elves and dragons around every corner there will be some magic-rich environments and deep crossover conspiracy currents behind the scenes.

After the Earthdawn connection I intend to commit what some consider another cardinal sin of Shadowrun – I’m sticking with the retro eighties style matrix technology. As an IT professional I’m well aware of the ways in which modern technology surpasses what is in the earlier edition Shadowrun books but I’m choosing to embrace the 80’s style technology and retro feel instead of updating it to “modern standards.” If my group chooses come back to Shadowrun again later I might upgrade the feel of the game but for now it’s huge wired decks and a retro feel for me.