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Canon and fiction

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biotech66

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« on: <06-10-14/2124:48> »
Stupid comic book rant incoming

I love comics, but I hate inconsistencies and elseworlds stories.  I HATE when I shell out some serious money ONLY to find out it "doesn't count."  So my question to you today is:  What counts for Shadowrun.  Do web fiction, short stories on Drive Through RPG, and novels count for whats happening in the world of tomorrow?

Speech|Thought|Matrix|Astral

DeathStrobe

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« Reply #1 on: <06-10-14/2250:43> »
Everything is canon, but there is a lot of disinformation in the setting that will make some things count more or less than others.

I'm sure even that bizarro Microsoft game is canon...just no one believes in teleportation magic, or a weird ziggurat in Brazil in the 20's or 30's? I just made that up, I haven't played that SR game, so I honestly don't even know its "story" which it technically had none.

But for the most part everything is canon. Any discrepancies can be attributed to the information game, where the powers the be were attempting to cover up or intentionally misinform people, or people's personal biases colored their stories.

Critias

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« Reply #2 on: <06-10-14/2330:07> »
Well, no.  Not "everything" is canon.  The video games, for instance -- since one was brought up -- traditionally aren't, mostly because there's no telling how the game plays, what choices a character makes, etc.  Shadowrun Returns is basically an alternate reality, for instance, for just that reason;  something written into the setting 20+ years after the fact can't be terribly canon, because the decisions the player makes would affect the timeline, the character screwing up would affect the timeline, etc, etc. 

Shadowrun Online is going to be canon in the broad strokes -- and, in fact, the broad strokes will be affecting the ongoing SR metaplot, and vice versa -- but again, it's not like every nitty gritty little detail can be official (I imagine the metahuman ratios, or Awakened-to-mundane ratios, will be all out of wack once the game gets up and running and folks make characters, but that doesn't mean we need to change the demographics figures for Boston in a new supplement, y'know?).

That said, the default rule certainly is "if it's published, it's canon."  So yeah.  If it's up on DrivethruRPG, it's official.  Depending on the source, ditto with web fiction (if it's from an official Catalyst source, it's official).  Likewise novels, likewise short fiction in sourcebooks, all that sort of stuff.  If it's from an official source, it's official, basically.

Now...that doesn't mean it's all true.  You need ot be aware of the meta-setting when reading these sourcebooks.  What someone says in a novel might be "official" but might also just be that character's opinion, not the truth.  What a Jackpoint commenter speculates in a sourcebook might be what that shadowrunner believes, but that doesn't mean they're right.  That's how it's always been.  You've got to take it all with a grain of salt, pay attention, look for patterns, and (maybe) read the "game info" sections to decipher fact from fiction.

DeathStrobe

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« Reply #3 on: <06-11-14/0029:40> »
Are you sure? Like Shadowrun SNES I didn't think was canon, and yet there Jake Armitage was in Splinter State, well sorta. But it does imply the events of the SNES game are canonical.

Like wise, Dragonfall does not have a singular ending, so it could be canonical, however the true fate of Feuerschwinge is left to be somewhat ambiguous. Like wise, Feuerschwinge has been relatively inconsequential to the metaplot for...almost ever and has been pretty much fluff for the SOX. The Disciples of Cleansing Fire could be a real toxic shaman cult in the SOX, but it doesn't have to be following Feuerschwinge. And their ageless leader could always be explained by a toxic free spirit impersonating Feuerschwinge in human form, or a vampire, or any number of other magical things.

Critias

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« Reply #4 on: <06-11-14/0039:47> »
Are you sure? Like Shadowrun SNES I didn't think was canon, and yet there Jake Armitage was in Splinter State, well sorta. But it does imply the events of the SNES game are canonical.

Like wise, Dragonfall does not have a singular ending, so it could be canonical, however the true fate of Feuerschwinge is left to be somewhat ambiguous. Like wise, Feuerschwinge has been relatively inconsequential to the metaplot for...almost ever and has been pretty much fluff for the SOX. The Disciples of Cleansing Fire could be a real toxic shaman cult in the SOX, but it doesn't have to be following Feuerschwinge. And their ageless leader could always be explained by a toxic free spirit impersonating Feuerschwinge in human form, or a vampire, or any number of other magical things.
The games can be canonical in the broadest strokes, and you can see a little wink towards major NPCs or NPC organizations, etc, etc...but...the details?  What happens at the end in some of those games?  The repercussions of those games?  There's no real way to factor that in, to make the whole game canon, so the plan wasn't to try in the first place.  You can imply stuff all you want to, but that's not the same as something being full-on canon.  Heck, the video games don't even work with the same basic mechanics of the actual game, so there's already a flaw in any canonicity argument;  have you seen Harlequin or Dodger's stats, compared to how they're presented in SRR

And, yes, I'm sure.  Particularly with Shadowrun Returns.

DeathStrobe

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« Reply #5 on: <06-11-14/0044:41> »
Are you sure? Like Shadowrun SNES I didn't think was canon, and yet there Jake Armitage was in Splinter State, well sorta. But it does imply the events of the SNES game are canonical.

Like wise, Dragonfall does not have a singular ending, so it could be canonical, however the true fate of Feuerschwinge is left to be somewhat ambiguous. Like wise, Feuerschwinge has been relatively inconsequential to the metaplot for...almost ever and has been pretty much fluff for the SOX. The Disciples of Cleansing Fire could be a real toxic shaman cult in the SOX, but it doesn't have to be following Feuerschwinge. And their ageless leader could always be explained by a toxic free spirit impersonating Feuerschwinge in human form, or a vampire, or any number of other magical things.
The games can be canonical in the broadest strokes, and you can see a little wink towards major NPCs or NPC organizations, etc, etc...but...the details?  What happens at the end in some of those games?  The repercussions of those games?  There's no real way to factor that in, to make the whole game canon, so the plan wasn't to try in the first place.  You can imply stuff all you want to, but that's not the same as something being full-on canon.  Heck, the video games don't even work with the same basic mechanics of the actual game, so there's already a flaw in any canonicity argument;  have you seen Harlequin or Dodger's stats, compared to how they're presented in SRR

And, yes, I'm sure.  Particularly with Shadowrun Returns.

Yeah, that's what I mean. You have to imagine the video games are from the bias perspective of the main character. Its like a recollection of the events. Kind of like the novels written in first person perspective. Just because you played through it doesn't mean the main character is a reliable narrator, just like how you can't actually rely on any Shadowland or Jackpoint post to be 100% true or even any of the novels.

Crimsondude

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« Reply #6 on: <06-11-14/0111:55> »
Like Critias said, a nod to the video game by introducing a character who is similar to a major NPC in the game doesn't mean the video game is anyway canon. Splinter States is canon. The video games, even SRR or SRO, aren't. SRO is based on the canon, not the other way around.
« Last Edit: <06-11-14/0113:58> by Crimsondude »

RulezLawyerZ

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« Reply #7 on: <06-11-14/1603:17> »
Like wise, Dragonfall does not have a singular ending, so it could be canonical, however the true fate of Feuerschwinge is left to be somewhat ambiguous. Like wise, Feuerschwinge has been relatively inconsequential to the metaplot for...almost ever and has been pretty much fluff for the SOX. The Disciples of Cleansing Fire could be a real toxic shaman cult in the SOX, but it doesn't have to be following Feuerschwinge. And their ageless leader could always be explained by a toxic free spirit impersonating Feuerschwinge in human form, or a vampire, or any number of other magical things.

That, in my mind, has been the beauty of Shadowrun since day one.
Player: "But this book says it's the most powerful handgun in the world! It shoots through schools!"
Me: "That book is a catalog. You're quoting in-game marketing copy."

ChewyGranola

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« Reply #8 on: <06-11-14/1614:43> »
That is a cool thing about Shadowrun. Take everything with a huge grain of salt. Heck, there's no reason the out of character game info stuff has to be telling the whole truth.

Nath

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« Reply #9 on: <06-11-14/1847:31> »
"Canon" is not actually something that has ever been defined. Nor the line developper nor any freelancers ever vowed to defend or even respect it. Every story, whatever the media is, works on an unwritten agreement between the narrator and the audience that the story will advance within the boundaries of reasonable expectations (in the case of RPG, it applies at two levels, between authors and readers, and between the gamemaster and its players). And this starts with internal consistency.

For this reason, most SR authors try to maintain consistency with previous sourcebooks, adventures and novels. And it regularly happened that an author lacked knowledge of a specific point, within SR tens of thousands of pages, he was writing about, and no one noticed it before it went to print. Each of those case then required to resolve the conflict between sources, which would usually be done only when a later book would touch the same topic, sometimes years later.

At some point, the novels were contradicting so many RPG sources that a consensus was reached to always ignore the novel in case of conflicting references. But as far as I know, it is the only (unwritten) rule there ever was (since videogames were never seriously considered as source).

Otherwise, sometimes the oldest source takes precedence, sometimes it's the most recent one, sometimes it's the most frequently used and sometimes it's the most logical one. But the actual choice only lies in the author that will get to settle the score. So it's mostly a matter of his personal taste and what he wants for Shadowrun. The unreliable narrator can then be a convenient excuse for whatever decision is taken, even if well outside of the readers' "reasonable expectations," especially since there have been enough turnover for often no longer having the original author of a conflicting source around to explain what his actual intention was.

 

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