[Opti]

Hey guys, I don't mind saying I am pretty new to the "secret" history of Shadowrun, but with the podcast, I have been thrust into dealing with a lot of issues that I hadn't anticipated. I guess the first question is what is the general consensus (or explanation) for the conflicting dates (and maps, and info) that comes out of the sourcebooks?  For example, there are conflicts even between the 4th ed rulebook and the sixth world almanac regarding when Lone Star moved into Seattle and when the Sinsearach tribe was formed. Is there an in-universe reason for this, or is it just typos, errors, or overlooked in editing?

Second, is this fairly typical, and is it on purpose? I have seen discussions of "unreliable narrators," which makes sense, I am just not used to seeing that style in a core rulebook. Thanks, guys!

opti

[Tzeentch]

Conflict maps is largely because they is/was no base source to work off of, it's just drawings and even a small change in linework means borders shift by hundreds of kilometers.

Dates are often just mistakes. The Sixth World Atlas is particularly unreliable in many respects and should be considered a useful source, but if another book contradicts it, then SWA is probably wrong.

Some info IS considered to be from unreliable sources, but generally that doesn't include maps or dates.

Shadowrun accidentally contradicts itself all the time, for various reasons (e.g. I wince at the many canon errors in Hazard Pay). It's a VERY complex setting to write for.

[CanRay]

Also, unreliable narrators and research by the characters themselves, sometimes conflicting even in the same topic.  These are Shadowrunners for the most part, not researchers or authors.

[Opti]

Thanks for the info, guys.

[Nath]

Also, unreliable narrators and research by the characters themselves, sometimes conflicting even in the same topic.  These are Shadowrunners for the most part, not researchers or authors.

Which the reader is completely unable to distinguish from author's mistakes, unless the issue is addressed in either the same sourcebook or another one the reader happens to own. If it's only addressed in a subsequent release after the error has been singled out, chances are the author is just too proud to admit he could ever make a mistake and he's trying to make sense of it afterward, claiming everything went down exactly as he had planned from the beginning, twirling his mustache and mwahahaing.

[CanRay]

Or the author contradicts information in the same book itself.  Knowing that the character didn't research properly. 

[Tzeentch]

Or the authors forgot to read Target: Wastelands. 

[BlackMyron]

 Part of it is that the earliest material had a partial attempt to tie everything together; the news articles in the early scenario books often contained references to the novels (and some were outright tied to them)... but if you check the dating they don't line up.  Sometimes errors just propagate from the early sources - case in point, the creation of Morgan is always said to be 2050 because the novel where she was created was set in 2050... for the prologue section.  The main part of the novel is set in 2051.  (The Relics of Power trilogy are a particularly sticky issue, as game authors never seemed to know what year any of the three were set)

[Crimsondude]

Or the authors thought they could do better than T:W. I'm speculating.


Sorry, Ken. Even for SR I always found it hard to buy that in 2062 there are space station factories in LEO that are so massive they'd be visible to the naked eye on the ground. And not "You can see the ISS on a clear night" visible, but Futurama-style orbital billboards visible.

T:W is a dreadfully dry book that isn't very good for actual, you know, shadowrunning. Everything I pitched at Jason when it was the first kernel of an idea was to make the book actually useful, and that meant not retconning anything in there but definitely disregarding much of it for material presented from a different perspective. I wanted to make things like Desert Wars actually something that runners could actually influence rather than the "Don't bother. You're dead if you try" noise. Unfortunately, I didn't get to work on it or much of anything in the last year or two because of other obligations, but there seems to be enough good feedback from people who've used it that I think they made the right decision.

[Tzeentch]

Sorry, Ken. Even for SR I always found it hard to buy that in 2062 there are space station factories in LEO that are so massive they'd be visible to the naked eye on the ground. And not "You can see the ISS on a clear night" visible, but Futurama-style orbital billboards visible.

-- Hey man, don't look at me I only wrote the arctic stuff My complaint was mainly contradictions of previous canon or outright wrong info (e.g. explosive decompression). Space was Jon Szeto's baby and he had a very definitive vision for it

T:W is a dreadfully dry book that isn't very good for actual, you know, shadowrunning.

-- That's a matter of taste. No need to be passively slam me lol. I'm sure you'll agree it's hard to make the Antarctic all that interesting without getting pretty crazy (space is even worse, IMO they should have stressed the surface aspect of space operations to plug shadowrunners into from the start; bringing a bunch of hyped-up gangers into space to do a job stretches credulity).

I wanted to make things like Desert Wars actually something that runners could actually influence rather than the "Don't bother. You're dead if you try" noise.

--- Yeah, Shadowrun had a LOT of that back in the day. They really tried to keep things focused on the "doing crime for some kibble" level even when the game had moved well beyond that. Indeed, fixing some of that "boom you're dead" was specifically the point of the Tir Tairngire changes in SONA (for example).
-- Was the Desert Wars stuff in Hazard Pay going to be fleshed out at some point? It's always been a sort of nebulous thing in the setting.

But  Unfortunately, I didn't get to work on it or much of anything in the last year or two because of other obligations, but there seems to be enough good feedback from people who've used it that I think they made the right decision.

-- That's cool. Most of my problems are canonical (i.e. thread topic), not adventure, related. But I'm not shy about saying Shadowrun's setting has become too dense for it's own good, and has been for some time.