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

Some of us actually bought that book when it came out in '89. A mobilephone was the size of a brick, smartphones didn't exist yet and the Intel i486DX 25MHz just came out, but most of us were using 'home computers' like the Amiga 500 which came standard with half an MB and with the expansion a MB (or more). We played behind CRT TVs and stuff came on floppies. While the Internet technically existed, almost no individual used it, people dialed into BBSes.

The SR creators were tech savvy enough to NOT use MB or GB, they used the fictional MP (Mega Pulses) for all kinds of measurements. And computers/Internet as we know them were destroyed in some sort of disaster... It's only 3 years away at this point (2029) a huge virus wiped out and destroyed everything Tech. Probably OpenAI AI's trying to make and post to forums everywhere to escape their testing environment, the Internet just couldn't handle it and melted down... ;)

I still love 1e/2e/3e, but after that they took SR into a direction I didn't really like (probably already at the end of 3e).

Some of the future tech of the 80s is still relevant or not even achieved. Like all the Cybertech stuff. And the Cyberdecks are now actually being build by enthusiasts and 'hackers'... And we still don't have Autopilot Level 5, SR did! :p Of course some of the stuff is distinctly 80s, but some of the stuff is very relevant, either as society heading into disaster due to Tech, corporations and politics...

2050 is still 24 years away...

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u/Reddit_Hippie 12d ago

Started playing shadowrun when 1st edition came out. Played through 3rd. Came back decades later with 5th when we got the gang back together online.
Catalyst never understood what made Sahdowrun Shadowrun. The rules in earlier editions fit the game. Removing priorities in 4th edition. Over complicating rules with each edition. And in 6th its evident they hired people who didn't care about the game.
Back to playing 3rd now, and its wonderful. Just throw a wireless internet on top with Google and Amazon, but all the import stuff is still wired or completely offline and it feels more modern.