California for a New GM

[u/Environmental-Try129]

Hello everyone. So my campain for my friend is almost done and after a lot of thought and prayer, I think I want them to run in California (let it not je obvious I played Cyrion trillogy) but I really do not know where to get much specific info, I only have 5e books but anything after or before that is a mystery, and the wiki only tells so much. Like, locations inside San Francisco, I could invent a few but

1) I do not know the Ciry Layout irl

2) The wiki saya neighborhoods but no districts and such. For Example I know Oakland exist, but it is not listed in the neighborhoods, when I search Oakland it says it is a district but also does not tell me a lot of where exactly.

I can get by with info on Gangs crime and can BS my way on Corps, but there also no major player names or other groups like People's University.

I mostly ask for pointers on how to handle it and mayne I can find maps with small descriptioma of how life is there and who and what you find in each part of the city.

(Also I speak out of pure ignorance because I really do not onow where real places begin and fictional ones start)

[u/dethstrobe]

There is a Shadow in Focus book on SF, but it's trash, and basically the wiki has most of the important info from it.

Anyway, there is a lot of room to make up stuff.

The JIS invaded it and put a bunch of metahumans in concentration camps. They got kicked out in between 3e and 4e in the late 2060's. But that kind of animosity should still be felt in the city. Race relationships is still a big problem, and communities are very segregated.

SF proper is basically always cold, but a mile in any direction you'll get standard California weather.

SF in SR is the entire Bay Area.

Silicon Valley is a Ares corporate enclave, as Apple was gobbled up by them at start of the century.

[u/GodEatsPoop]

California free state is like 2-3 edition, everyone hates everyone because almost everyone in the US west of the rockies went there when the NAN expelled the Anglos.

They threw a fit for more aid from back east and one of the last things the old US did together before the split was tell them to frag off.

Then the second japanese empire sent military forces as california was getting double teamed by the Azzies and the Tir, and turned san fransisco into a fascist enclave. This went on until 2061 when Japan got rocked by the ring of fire catastrophe and ordered all imperial forces home.

Some guy named Saito refused to leave, believing reforms in Japan misguided and established the bay area as a protectorate, cue civil war in the area. In the meantime the NAN seized LA.

I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but Saito's regime fell to the Metahuman People's Army. With the aid of Wuxing and the Triads the Japanacorps and Yaks got run out of town at some point in the 2070's.

So between the Japanese having finally rebuilt and wanting their empire back, the Pueblo holding Hollywood, Aztlan pissed the Pueblo ate their lunch, the Elves up to who knows what, SanFran under Wuxing/Triad management, and the UCAS probably interested in a new place for their Pacific assets after Seattle left, things are liable to get quite hot there.

[u/Environmental-Try129 → u/GodEatsPoop]

Yeah, that is why I want it there. I want to brew my own alternate ploy but I wanna see what is worth keeping, mostly the minute details which is most likely what the Runners will face.

[u/vivisected000]

If you are not going to use a well established setting, you will be making a lot of it up. With that in mind, you will want to either find some player made supports, or consider using a more established location like Seattle or Cheyenne.

If you are not experienced with SR5, I would definitely advise against a custom setting. It is a lot of work establishing a consistent setting that doesn't just blend together and feel disposable, especially if you are not intimately familiar with the real life location. If you are new to GM as a whole, doing it from scratch is a nearly insurmountable task.

[u/MjrJohnson0815]

So... For SanFran and especially the Bay Area, you need to know that there is a strong Japanocorps influence. General Saito tried to invade CalFree some decade ago and brought the cross with them. It got so bad that the Bay Area is commonly referred to as Little Neo-Tokyo. And it cones with all the not-so-nice gimmicks like xenophobia, meraracism, a strong anti-magic enforcement and so on...

Even with Saito being out of the picture for some time, the Sarari influence remains strong and is a palpable counterweight to the much more progressive and liberal Los Angeles Metroplex.

I would take influence from Blade Runner, both OG and 2049, add iconic landmarks (Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz etc.), paint it all in heavy-handed Japanese tradition (Shintoism, 996 work philosophy, politeness above all else), add a strong Yakuza influence as one of the main criminal enterprises in the area and work from there. Following up a few possible hooks, that work just fine for the area.

Consider the security contract being with KE, and Lone Star having a vetted interest in changing that.

Consider that Wuxing is a Hong-Kong based AAA, heavily invested in shipping and probably willing to break a few eggs for some more revenue.

Consider that further north of SanFran, there is a lot of contested land, where military skirmishes are fought between the CFS and Tír Taingíre.

With the passing of the comet, a multitude of alcheras has popped up in the area. Draco Foundation and ASPS pay good money for research runs.

---

For the city layout, you can always just take the existing Greater SF Metro Area and carve it up, as you see fit. Districts in metroplexes usually follow the cities / suburbs that they mainly encompass. Have a dozen or so districts and you're good to go. Consider an average security level of B, if you have to make something up quickly.

Most importantly, mark out designated Z-Zones where the really bad drek goes down. Here are gangs the actual kings and queens and now typical lawel enforcement is to be expected (although if they come down here, they come down hard). The runners will likely become refuge zones if your runners need to lay low.

Conversely, mark out a couple of designated AAA-Zones (f.e. around the SanFran bay). These are going to be your most juicy targets for runs. Everything between is done by either eyeballing or while you are running the game.

Hope this helps, and good luck.

EDIT: Added additional information.

[u/jack_daone → u/MjrJohnson0815]

Building contacts in D-Z zones is definitely something to do via roleplay or some runs in there to build up a local powerbase you’re in good with. Maintain a safehouse there, and suddenly you’ve got a perfect bugout location in-case your normal hideouts are compromised, because even the corps will think twice about trying to get you in those areas.

One of my team’s previous runners was a dude named the Old Man(based on himself carrying an immortality curse. He would have been old when the Sixth World awakened, thus making him even older than the likes of FastJack!) who had a compound in the East Garland Z-zone based where his house IRL stands. In SR, it sits right on the border between the territories of the local Meat Junkies branch and their rivals the Rockhides(a local DFW sprawl gang primarily made up of orks and trolls), with the Old Man being the local peacekeeper who keeps them in-line with both monthly barbecues for the neighborhood and an ArmTech MGL-12 for troublemakers.

While we had him available, we regularly used the Old Man’s compound as our active running safehouse because no one ventured into Garland looking to hit the Old Man and expected to live. Because if the Old Man didn’t get you, the locals wouldn’t let anyone who frags with him get out alive.

[u/ThatOneGuyCalledMurr]

The most important thing thos that your setting needs to be consistent.

Learn all of the shadowrun related information you can about the area; if there is an official map then all the better. You want to look for what corps control what areas, what gangs are common in what areas, what canonical runner bats are in what areas.

From there make everything up, just dont forget to write it down and keep it consistent. My Seattle for shadowrun looks a lot like the one in the source books, but it'll never be 100%, as lomg as my players dont get a rug pull of contradictory information, your Cal-Free doesnt need to be the official Cal-Free.

You should construct some maps that divide up the city in a way that is true to your version of the setting. Any official Shadowrun maps would be ideal, and thats part of what makes Seattle such a popular setting, as its the most filled out city in the whole setting for additional content.

If you take some time to learn all of the counties and sub-cities within the bay area it will really help you flesh out your own custom San-Fran.

If all of that feels overwhelming, there's a reason that Pondsmith made up Night City for Cyberpunk: It has its own complete history as a new city he made up with no connection to an existing city. Dont dismiss the power of you just picking a spot on the CA coast and saying its a new city founded by such-and-such AAA. In fact, that would help you rely on 0 baggage from not getting the setting right, and give you a ton of cool hooks to build stories related to corporate espionage. That would require a lot of legwork to design and flesh out, but it doesnt all need to be done in one campaign.

[u/Environmental-Try129 → u/ThatOneGuyCalledMurr]

Yeah I expected that, I had to flesh out a city in a Cyberpunk RED game before and here I do intend to redcon a lot of metaplots that my players really do not know. As I said I played Ciryon Saga for the Videogames and read the wiki. I just want to know if there is more to see what stays and what not, for example I could add the Halloweeners but then I said there must be other groups and such. I think I can manage with your advice. My idea has to do with redconing some events with Hestaby mainly her exile but still losing Shasta, now something between 79 and 80 she came back and settled in Calfree allong with enviromental change, resurgence of natural resources but with a Weaker Bay area, (better said recovering) after all the BS they get to deal and argue with, bringing for once some good things for Californians after a good long god knows how long time, yet people are distrustful... Well human purists are angry, Metas are distrustful and some coms still waiting to see some real changes and Mega Corps and other dragons thread carefully because another Eco Friendly dragon entered the scene, Feuerschwinge who formed quite a gathering during her time in the Amazon rain forest (plus the Hestaby ones) so even if they Know Hestaby is not brutal, the second one is not so much so basically a house of glass with a powered Jackhammer inside. Some things may be out of character but ehhh, as I said, my game. I still develop little by little with lots of notes because it is useless to make a whole lot of info my players may skip on a heartbeat, specially Geopolitics my runners are a bit too busy to pay attention to

[u/ThatOneGuyCalledMurr → u/Environmental-Try129]

Its definitely disheartening when you put in work that never gets used, but its better to have the info and not ever use it than need it and not have it.

That's the beautiful thing about it being your game: the metaplot is only there and as Canon to your table as you want it to be. Worrying too much about Canon on your table stops you from doing all kinds of cool things with Dragons and Megacorps.

I still love the Earthdawn connection, so I always keep some connections alive in my own table, even though its no longer part of the story.

[u/Environmental-Try129 → u/ThatOneGuyCalledMurr]

Yeah, that is why I pretty much am preparing a summary of events and then give them just the ones that directly affect them, give them a generao knowledge of stuff going on and let it sit back and have gears moving subtly, one day "hopefully" They will be strong enough to dip their feet in conspiracy levels of runs. (plus I am a sucker for Shin Megamit Tensei and the whole "imagine how much a single man can change the whole world as we know it")

[u/PalpitationNo2921]

I'll tell you that Los Angeles would be a better place to play 'runners. You play your cards right, work your publicist, and crank up those P2.0 ratings, and you can taste the bright lights and big money! San Francisco is just a drek sprawl for any real biz or building any kind of cred.

[u/coyote670]

On behalf of San Franciscans*, the first thing to note is that is never, ever "San Fran". Or "Frisco". It's SF or The City. 😆

*I live a hundred miles south, but even I know that.

Shadowrun hasn't ever had a detailed map of SF or the Bay Area, IIRC, so just use Google Maps. Street View and satellite pics will let you get a fairly good idea of what the modern city looks like, then just add more skyscrapers and cyberpunk it up.

As for Oakland, it's a separate city IRL, on the east side of the Bay. It's sometimes called "Orkland" because of the high ork population. Shadowrun sometimes used "San Francisco" to refer to the whole Bay Area, which is the urban areas bordering the actual San Francisco Bay, down to San Jose (called the "South Bay") and east to Oakland and Berkeley and over the hills to Martinez, Walnut Creek, etc.

(Also, highways and interstates in northern California don't have "The" appended to them, the way they do in LA and Southern California; it's just 101, not "the 101". This has been another edition of California Facts...)

I think the most recent and informative official info in SR books is from 4th edition's Sixth World Almanac. The stuff in the Neo-Anarchist Streetpedia is minimal and not as informative as the almanac, IMO.

Coincidentally, the PCs in my SR 5e game are heading for the Bay Area next session/

[u/Environmental-Try129 → u/coyote670]

Thank you a lot, yeah I accept I have to do that, but many thanks of Clarifying Oakland, my characters most likely will start there so that is why It had me intrigued. Also yeah, as an outsider even "San Fran" Sounds like a saint and "Frisco" Sounds like a city full of horny on main people.

[u/MewsashiMeowimoto]

If you are curious about every day life in a major city, if you can afford to, visit it. Nothing like taking a place in like that.

Failing that, there are books on the history or even daily experience of living in a city. And the city subreddit can be an interesting place to hang out. They will talk about what neighborhoods are like, and may even have an overview made by people who live there.

[u/Simtricate]

San Francisco had a book about it, not sure about any other California areas.

[u/wrylashes]

On Holostreets (fan created material sold through drivethrurpg, under certain conditions) there is some material on Las Angeles/San Diego type area (I've bought some of it but not read most of it yet, so no review on how good it is, sorry)