Shadowrun: Difference between revisions

{{quote|"''A standard mission is 20 minutes of objectives, three days of planning, and 600 seconds of mayhem.''"}}

 

 

 

 

 

[[Shadowrun/Characters|Has a Character Sheet]].

 

{{tropelist}}

* [[The Ageless]]: Dragons have this as a racial trait, as well as some elves.

* [[All Deaths Final]]: If you die in the tabletop game, you're dead. [[Only Mostly Dead|Not so much]] in the FPS, where you can be resurrected within the same round if your buddies care to do so and have the MP.

* [[All There in the Manual]]: To be specific the ''Sixth World Almanac''. It explains what happened in the background. This is somewhat necessary because of the [[Retcon]]s from the previous editions, new players getting into it, and just clearing things up. However it's written In-Universe so [[Unreliable Narrator]] is in effect. (Also there is several misprints in it too.) Still worth it for background information

* [[Amusing Injuries]]: Taking the Cursed disadvantage causes this with a character's magic. Rulewise it causes glitches to happen more often when casting magic and causing you to make dice rolls for otherwise automatically successes. An example they give is summoning a water spirit can set your clothes on fire and using Improved Reflex is glitched will result in your character tripping over their shoelaces.

* [[Ancient Conspiracy]]: The immortal Elves and Greater Dragons, together and separately.

* [[Backpack Cannon]]: The Ballista Multi-Role Missile Launcher, which is also an [[Awesome Backpack]].

* [[Badass Crew]]: Any sufficiently experienced crew of runners that have worked together for a length of time.

* [[BFG]]: The Thunderstruck Gauss Rifle, assault cannons, sniper rifles, etc.

* [[Big Bad]]: The Horrors.

*** The transition from headjacks to display glasses and earbuds is mostly due to the ubiquitous nature of commlinks, and the transition from Virtual to Augmented Reality. Most people use their commlinks as smartphones, and tend to wear them externally with the aforementioned display glasses, earbuds, and fashionably hidden trodes. Hardcore hackers have their commlinks and simsense systems ''implanted directly into their brains''. Technomancers don't even need to use commlinks at all.

* [[Brain In a Jar]]: Multiple examples

** Things like these tend to show up in the flavor text of a lot of the game's sourcebooks.

* [[Britain Is Only London]]: The timeline of 3rd edition describes [[Oop North|Teesside]] as part of London.

* [[Cast from Hit Points]]: When magicians cast spells with a Force greater than than their Magic rating, Drain does Physical damage instead of Stun. Also, some uses of Blood Magic.

* [[The Cat Came Back]]: Using the Advance Residence rules this can happen with your apartment. No matter how many times you change the locks and passcodes and re-arm the traps, friends and family members keep getting into your apartment.

* [[City of Adventure]]: Seattle, Hong Kong, LA, Neo-Toyko, Lagos, and the Insect Spirit infected ruins of Chicago.

** Also Denver and New York City (well, Manhattan, anyway. The other four boroughs haven't really been fleshed out all that well). Ironically, the ''entire state'' of Montana had a sourcebook written up by fans, created entirely from bits of fluff found in the official books, in case you wanted to see what the NAN was all about. Like, how it's the only place on Earth that actually creates the base materials for Orichalcum. Would've been nice to have had that, FASA...

** For those wondering: [[Eldritch Abomination|The Horrors]] that did get through have been seen near the start of the Badlands in the Eastern part of the state, Billings is [[Open Secret|the last site of free trade in the world]], the [[Knights Templar|Mystic Crusaders]] are actively seeking Thor's Hammer, minor dragons exist all over Yellowstone, Great Falls AFB, as in "We fire the 500 intercontinental ballistic missiles laid all over Montana from here!" is under the control of Lofwyr through bartering with the NAN and, to make it [[It Gets Worse|absolutely perfectly crappy]] if you're Scandinavian you just might express [[Body Horror|UGE]] by becoming either an Aesir (a literal angel, forsaking your physical body to ascend to the Astral Plane) or, [[And I Must Scream|A Frost Giant! Like Thrym! Which means]] [[Weaksauce Weakness|phenomenal cosmic power, magical abilities, 12' feet tall and double-digit body and strength stats!... and an allergy to anything over freezing point]].

*** To make the point: ''Seattle is Paradise!''

* [[Coca-Pepsi, Inc.]]: The UCAS (United Canadian and American States)

* [[Corrupted Data]]:

** Supplement ''Virtual Realities''

** Lofwyr would eat you for saying that...

* [[Crapsack World]]: It's [[Cyberpunk]], what did you expect? That said, it's implied things are getting better, albeit slowly-the current century is sort of the "Age of Piracy", with multiple [[Mega Corp|East India Trading Companies]].

** Also don't steal or do anything that make them want you dead no matter the cost. Reveal Aztechnology blood rituals or steal a set of the Renraku Red Samurai's signature armor, and they might just call down a [[Kill Sat]] on you.

** Also ''Unwired'' mentioned that there are unwritten standards. It says that being a 50-foot dragon in a small tour bus won't crash the node but it causes a whole bunch of graphical glitches and it's just being rude.

* [[Cyborg]]: Cybernetics are common, but the term "cyborg" in the Sixth World is reserved for... Something far less pleasant. Specifically, a cyborg is [[Brain In a Jar|a metahuman brain implanted into a drone body]], which is kept in a constant state of alert 16 hours a day by a cocktail of hormones and neurotransmitters. Like cyberzombies (see below), making someone a cyborg is ''very'' rarely a consensual procedure, and since adult brains tend to develop severe psychoses more quickly, most corps just [[Powered by a Forsaken Child|use the brains of children instead]], since they tend to last longer.

* [[Damage Reduction]]: Part of the system, everything has it.

* [[Dan Browned]]: In-universe: the portrayal of magicians and adepts in popular media leaves the genuine practitioners either laughing or groaning.

* [[Dark Is Not Evil]]: Pretty much what a goody two-shoes team of Shadowrunners will be. Also; though counted as Horrors, Spider Spirits run the gamut.

* [[Data Crystal]]: Optical Crystals.

* [[Did Not Do the Research]]: Practically everything, but mostly [[Justified]] due to the [[Rule of Fun]]. No one cares about physics when you're exploding heads with ''[[Agony Beam|lightning bolts]]''.

* [[Doppelganger Spin]]: The Double Image spell in ''Magic in the Shadows'' creates a single illusory double.

* [[Dueling Games]]: The First Editions of this game and ''Cyberpunk'' were released at about the same time. Sci-fi purists pretty much stuck with ''Cyberpunk'', but there was some degree of crossover appeal between the two. It can be argued that ''Shadowrun'' eventually won out (due to its books being a far more common sight on store shelves, and the near-total consensus of [[Fanon Discontinuity|"It doesn't exist,"]] from ''Cyberpunk'' fans regarding that game's Third Edition), but both games enjoy dedicated fanbases to this day.

* [[Fantastic Racism]]: Elves against most everybody, humans against orks and trolls (though groups like Humanis Policlub will extend it to every metahuman type), Japanese, Native Americans, Non-Native Americans, and Aztlaners at each other's throats, and so on.

** To be fair, most elves aren't racists. And the elven-ruled racist nations have effectively imploded in 4e, to the point where Tir Tairngire is now run collectively by a Great Dragon and an ork.

*** This isn't changed much for the [[PC]]s in 4th Edition. You can expect ''nearly every group'' to have a specific viewpoint on various races, though it's most notable in a bias for/against Orcs, Trolls, and assorted goblinoids. Usually, this takes the form of a penalty on social checks, though.

* [[Fantastic Recruitment Drive]]: People with the ability to use magic are extremely rare. Schools, corporations and magical groups regularly test citizens (particularly children) for magical talent.

* [[Gaia's Lament]]: Pollution and the side effects of magic have spoiled the Earth.

* [[Gambit Pileup]]

** The circumstances leading to the Second Crash. To begin with, you have [[Mega Corp|Novatech]], the largest privately owned company in the world, gearing up for an IPO to solve their cash flow problems. In order to accommodate the massive amount of trading that's expected, the East Coast Stock Exchange upgrades their servers. Meanwhile, [[A.I. Is a Crapshoot|Deus]], having been disassembled and stored in the heads of his cult members since fleeing the Renraku Archology, decides to take over the ECSE and use its facilities to compile and upgrade its code, giving it almost complete control over the Matrix. Meanwhile ''again'', [[Animal Wrongs Group|Winternight]], a Scandanavian Luddite terrorist group, has obtained a number of nuclear warheads and has modified them to produce massive EMPs; with the help of a rogue member of Deus' Otaku cult, they have identified two dozen of the world's Matrix nodes. Disabling over half of these would bring down the Matrix permanently and send the world back to the dark ages. The same rogue Otaku also helps assemble a virus to be implanted directly in the ECSE servers to do the most damage. On the appointed day, Deus invades the ECSE, takes over, spreads itself worldwide, takes over dozens of other servers and forces them all to work at upgrading his code. At the same time, Megaera, another AI who had been battling in Deus' "subconscious", breaks free and attacks him. Meanwhile ''yet again'', Mirage, the original AI who had served as Deus' and Maegera's source code, breaks into the ECSE servers to eliminate Deus. While they are battling, Winternight's Jormungand virus is triggered, along with a significant number of their EMP devices. Between the devices destroying vital Matrix nodes, the nigh-unstoppable virus, the battle and subsequent damage caused by three battling AIs, the damage done to the ECSE servers and dozens of others by Deus, and a Dissonance Pool created by the rogue Otaku to amplify everything else's effects, half in hopes of destroying Deus and half out of spite, the entire Matrix collapses.

*** If you didn't get all that, you're not to blame. For the ''Shadowrun'' movers and shakers, [[But for Me It Was Tuesday|this was par for the course]], the only difference being the collateral damage.

* [[Half-Human Hybrid]]: Averted. Children of mixed-metatype couples will end up as one of their parent's metatypes, not a mixture of both. Although metagenes can occasionally throw everything for a loop: an orc mother and a human father can have a dwarf baby, for example.

** Also anyone can have a plain human child. It is hinted that this is more common among parents of different metatypes.

* [[Happy Place]]: Lots and lots of people retreat from their depressing lives by using Simsense, to the point where Simsense addiction is more common than caffeine addiction.

** Considering that coffee in that place is ''made of soy'' like everything else...

* [[Point Build System]]: the most complicated part of the game, at least in the 4th Edition.

* [[The Pornomancer]]: [[Trope Namer]]. The term is slang for Social Adepts built to throw around 50 dice at any social roll, where ordinarily, an utter grand master of a skill won't get past 25 dice.

* [[Private Detective]]: Dirk Montgomery is a classic example. In addition, the hard boiled [[Film Noir|Noir]] detective is a [[Player Character]] archetype.

** Except that Archetpye also has Magic skills. So you're [[Dresden Files|Harry Dresden]].

* [[Ridiculously-Human Robots]]: Otomo drones, no doubt being a [[Shout-Out]] to [[RoboCop]].

* [[Rule of Cool]]: Monofilament '''''[[Chainsaw Good|CHAINSAWS]]'''''

* [[Scaramanga Special]]: The Century 220ZX light pistol in ''Ka•Ge'' magazine Volume 1 Issue 12.

* [[Scary Scorpions]]: The Scorpyrine in ''Paranormal Animals of Europe''.

* [[Serrated Blade of Pain]]: The macuitl sword in the ''Aztlan'' supplement.

* [[Shapeshifter Showdown]]: Mentioned in an article in ''Shadowland'' magazine #5.

* [[Shoulder Cannon]]: Available as cyberware.

* [[Shrug of God]]: Reading in between the lines in the Flashjack parts of the books seems like this. At one point the Flashjack users are wondering if an EMP would trigger a Cortex Bomb or would permanently disable it. We never get a clear outcome so it's up to the GM to decide.

* [[Skeleton Key]]: There are several devices in the game that can bypass electronic locks.

* [[Super Reflexes]]: Available to characters with enhanced reflexes, either via cybernetics, spells, or adept abilities.

* [[Swiss Army Weapon]]: The AUG-CSL Weapon System in the 1E/2E ''Street Samurai Catalog''.

** Literally, the Victorinox Memory Blade in 4E. It's manufactured by the modern-day manufacturers of the Swiss Army Knife.

* [[Take That]]: ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20120710210036/http://old.shadowrun4.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/SRGEPromo.pdf Shadowrun: Gibson Edition]'', the April Fool's joke for 2010. For some background, William Gibson has infamously stated he hates this game.

[[Category:Tabletop Games]]

[[Category:Shadowrun]]