Shadowrun deserves better

Shadowrun was cool in the 80s and 90s but suffered some severe problems with it's portrayal of Indigenous populations. I remember thinking back during 1E that for the populations they listed, every girl on the rez I knew would have ben having 10-20 babies starting more or less right then as I was in high school... and for all future generations getting knocked up by age 14 or so at the latest, with quintuplets... (whereas the White girls I was hanging out with would all have to be infertile).

The cultural stuff looked... OK. But I didn't know enough to really tell.

When it got to Mexico... it was funny they used the name Aztlan because that's a real aspiration of the most radical ends of 60s/70s Chicano movement that the US declared a terrorist goal as it's about the idea of making Mexico whole again.

But then making it a dragon led corporate thing stylized after the Aztecs seemed to be written all for 'cool' factor and without any sense of awareness of Mexican identity.

Like if I, as a Chicano / Asian / Indigenous mix wrote a book about 'Fantasy Sci Fi Italy' - it'd be that 'weirdly off'. I'd get all the cool and probably have a cringe level number of espresso and pizza jokes. But actual Europeans would feel like "who T.F. wrote this junk," whereas my fellow US-ians wouldn't know better and just play it. And then if I wrote that there were suddenly 1-billian Sicilians who all decided to start speaking Greek and only a handful of mainland Italians left despite it only being a half century later folks would just do the math and come back with WTF...

So Shadowrun wore out on me very fast.

Then I read somewhere that they scrubbed all the Indigenous stuff. Which was basically the entire setting. So what's left is just bland Cyberpunk with Elves.

These days, if I want the cyberpunk genre, but with fantasy and mythology, there's Otherscape.

Otherscape is written by people who do some actual research, and so far one of, if not both setting books have been written by authors who live in and are from the respective cities covered (Cairo yes, Tokyo I think has an author who loves there), so when they update for futurism, they at least start grounded. And no weird population flipping. Also instead of elves and orcs and other Tolkien things - it uses region specific mythology. The idea that mythology is manifesting into the world for some reason.

That said Otherscape's PBtA-like but tag based game engine is probably too different for most people.
 
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These days, if I want the cyberpunk genre, but with fantasy and mythology, there's Otherscape.

Otherscape is written by people who do some actual research, and so far one of, if not both setting books have been written by authors who live in and are from the respective cities covered (Cairo yes, Tokyo I think has an author who loves there), so when they update for futurism, they at least start grounded. And no weird population flipping. Also instead of elves and orcs and other Tolkien things - it uses region specific mythology. The idea that mythology is manifesting into the world for some reason.

That said Otherscape's PBtA-like but tag based game engine is probably too different for most people.
Oh, nice. Otherscape looks fire. I'm familiar with PBTA and tags in other games. What do you mean PBTA-like but tab-based? Like are there moves, but they are based on the tags?
 

Shadowscum has an unfortunate second potential reading or I'd suggest that instead. ShadowScum? IDK if that helps.
bench presenting GIF
 

We played so much 1e and 2e in the 90s. But the game was always a little broken and the bloat just got to be too much that I skipped 3e.

Yeah I think the game deserved better, but also im in no hurry to play it again.
2e was my favorite and I can't really nail down why. I think it was the timeframe it came out in (pre-kids, the Laubenstein and Bradstreet art rocked) and the group I ran it for, a smaller offshoot group of my main group of 2-3 consistent individuals. I think I got in every Bundle of Holding or Humble Bundle for 4th and 5th edition but never really touched them.

If I were to play it again, I'd just use Savage Worlds or some other multi-genre system as rolling that many d6's give me a headache :)
 

Oh, nice. Otherscape looks fire. I'm familiar with PBTA and tags in other games. What do you mean PBTA-like but tab-based? Like are there moves, but they are based on the tags?
City of Mist had proper moves but with Otherscape they moved away from that and leaned far more into statuses so there's just two moves: quick (narrative the outcome) or tracked (which imposes statuses and effects that you by from the amount of tags you used.)

And with Otherscape they added a loadout which are items-as-tags too. Because cyberpunk needs branded items,
From a pregen character:
1775140462141.png


And each character is made up of four themes, you start with three positive tags and a weakness but the pregens also have three fixed upgrades. When you make your own you can define them when you upgrade the theme.

1775140608914.png
(Purple = mythos aka magic, Red =Self aka characteristics or normal things, Blue = noise aka state of the art tech)
 

Shadowrun was cool in the 80s and 90s but suffered some severe problems with it's portrayal of Indigenous populations. I remember thinking back during 1E that for the populations they listed, every girl on the rez I knew would have ben having 10-20 babies starting more or less right then as I was in high school... and for all future generations getting knocked up by age 14 or so at the latest, with quintuplets... (whereas the White girls I was hanging out with would all have to be infertile).

The cultural stuff looked... OK. But I didn't know enough to really tell.

When it got to Mexico... it was funny they used the name Aztlan because that's a real aspiration of the most radical ends of 60s/70s Chicano movement that the US declared a terrorist goal as it's about the idea of making Mexico whole again.

But then making it a dragon led corporate thing stylized after the Aztecs seemed to be written all for 'cool' factor and without any sense of awareness of Mexican identity.

Like if I, as a Chicano / Asian / Indigenous mix wrote a book about 'Fantasy Sci Fi Italy' - it'd be that 'weirdly off'. I'd get all the cool and probably have a cringe level number of espresso and pizza jokes. But actual Europeans would feel like "who T.F. wrote this junk," whereas my fellow US-ians wouldn't know better and just play it. And then if I wrote that there were suddenly 1-billian Sicilians who all decided to start speaking Greek and only a handful of mainland Italians left despite it only being a half century later folks would just do the math and come back with WTF...

So Shadowrun wore out on me very fast.

Then I read somewhere that they scrubbed all the Indigenous stuff. Which was basically the entire setting. So what's left is just bland Cyberpunk with Elves.

These days, if I want the cyberpunk genre, but with fantasy and mythology, there's Otherscape.

Otherscape is written by people who do some actual research, and so far one of, if not both setting books have been written by authors who live in and are from the respective cities covered (Cairo yes, Tokyo I think has an author who loves there), so when they update for futurism, they at least start grounded. And no weird population flipping. Also instead of elves and orcs and other Tolkien things - it uses region specific mythology. The idea that mythology is manifesting into the world for some reason.

That said Otherscape's PBtA-like but tag based game engine is probably too different for most people.
On the one hand, Shadowrun tried. On the other hand, a lot of the ideas and language around inclusivity just weren't present in the late 80s/early 90s. They made some pretty rough mistakes. They featured indigenous peoples, but in ways still heavily indebted to stereotypes.
 

My exposure to Shadow Run recently was the Trilogy of Games (top Down RPGs) from a few years ago (SR, SR:DF, SR:HK) which were awesome enough to get me to get the 5e version of the game.

However, I don't know anything beyond that. I've normally been more of a Cyberpunk gamer as far as that genre is concerned.

What is Shadow Run Anarchy?

And what is Otherscapes?
 

Shadowrun Anarchy is a more lightweight and a bit more narrative version made by CatalystLabs so official.
This is the character sheet in whole and as you can see, considerably less crunchy.
1775149152757.png


Otherscape is Son of Oak's mythical cyberpunk game which is a refinement on their City of Mist. Has nothing to do with Shadowrun except that it can be used to play it (and do so really good).
 

On the one hand, Shadowrun tried. On the other hand, a lot of the ideas and language around inclusivity just weren't present in the late 80s/early 90s. They made some pretty rough mistakes. They featured indigenous peoples, but in ways still heavily indebted to stereotypes.
When looking at things from the past, I think it's best to try to place them within the cultural context of when they were produced. That certainly doesn't mean we should excuse bigotry nor does it make the work immune from criticism. They tried, they got some things right, and they stumbled over other things.
 

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