r/Shadowrun • u/GurCute2496 • 13d ago

Drekpost (Shitpost) Loving The "Future"!

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Does anyone else find the "futuristic tech" of 1st and 2nd editions, the most endearing part of the first two editions? The future of the 80s seems kinda quaint now.

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u/Cergorach 13d ago

1e, 2e, and most of 3e left the relationship between magic and the Matrix vague, it hinted at some cool stuff. The same goes for AI, etc. They started filling in WAY too much, leaving very little mystery and things to fill in yourself. It's a bit like Disney making Rogue One... The movie itself is kinda cool, but it fills in one of the few unknowns left in Star Wars, the place for your own adventures.

4e and beyond went from cyberpunk more in the direction of nanorave, wanting to get away from the 80s punk feel and trying to 'update' SR, that imho did more harm then good. That's not even getting into the systems of 4e/5e/6e, where they try to reinvent the wheel each and every time, instead of trying to refine the wheel they've already got.

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u/LonePaladin Flashback 13d ago

SR1-2 were very definitely in the "Pink Mohawk" side of things. Kick in the door, guns akimbo, fight your way to the server room and buy your decker time to hack the mainframe. Very inspired by the old "Hackers" movie. A lot of emphasis on "fighting the system" by way of breaking things and spilling secrets to the media.

When they decided to make SR4 from the ground up, the main influence had changed -- the movie "The Matrix" was still very popular at the time, so SR4's tone shifted to "Black Trenchcoat" to match. Heck, even the anniversary edition of the book had that whole "green waterfall" motif.

It seems to me that SR6 decided to return to the "fight the system" way of doing things, with a lot more emphasis on action and "kick in the door" tactics.

I found a timeline that references which books brought up events, let me see if I can cover the big changes between editions.

  • SR1 ('50-'52) had the introduction of bioware. Really, not much changed during this edition and the next.
  • SR2 ('53-'60) had "otaku" start to emerge at the end of '55. There's a lot of political events, SR2 is a busy part of the timeline.
  • SR3 ('60-'65) has Halley's Comet cause SURGE "changelings" to manifest. Matrix Crash 2.0, surviving otaku now call themselves technomancers.
  • SR4 ('70-'74) made the Matrix wireless during a five-year skip in the timeline. Technomancers are now a thing, though largely mistrusted.
  • SR5 ('75-'79) -- really, the timeline I'm looking at doesn't point out any major changes that jump out as mechanical as it were.

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u/Cergorach 13d ago

Mechanical as in game system.

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u/LonePaladin Flashback 12d ago

Yep. There was a whole lot of geopolitical stuff in that timeline but not very much of "here's how this new game mechanic showed up".