I'm no cyberpunk...
I've never played in a Shadowrun game. Ever. I almost have, but it's never quite happened. However, I did put in a little effort on a Shadowrun mush a while ago before deciding that it was a bit too much for me, particularly considering I didn't entirely understand the mush system and knew only one other player. Now, though, I'm invited into a Shadowrun game on Monday nights. I want to play. It isn't going to be entirely convenient, but I miss gaming with these guys. And Justin's excited about playing Shadowrun. So, I've been trying to think about what kind of character I want to play. This is difficult considering I've got only the faintest familiarity with the setting and nearly no clue about the game system.
Option number one is to play Dre, the girl I'm playing in the Serenity game. She'd work very well in a cyberpunk setting as her insanity deals specifically with data-awareness, noticing patterns, intuitive hacking. She sees interconnectedness, believes it's a part of her spiritual path. So long as she's focused and following the right path, she's on top of her game. When she isn't, though, she loses that calm capability to frantic figurings. She's a fun character to play. But I don't want to be playing her concurrently in two games in two different settings. I'm just not entirely optimistic about the Friday night game right now. It's either going to go fairly well or die a quick death. We'll see.
Option number two is to play that character I'd conjured up to play on that mush. She's essentially a doctor, there to fix you up when things go bad. Or to hook you up and make things better. Heavy into pharmaceuticals with no objection to using what she makes. Loves demolition and mythology as well. A lay philosopher. I'd written a bio for her a while back.
"Yeah, but how'd you end up in Denver?" His eyes are already getting that half-here, glazed-over look; his attention's wandering to the flicker of neon behind me.
I shrug, but I doubt he notices. "Same way I ended up in Chicago. Same way I ended up in Detroit. And every other fucking city I've crashed about in for the last six years. By bus." Sure, it wasn't what he was looking for, but his reaction, or lack thereof, tells me everything I needed to know: he isn't listening anymore. Neither is anyone else for that matter. Everyone wrapped up in their own deals, their own drugs, their own dilemmas. And here I am with mine: some junkie strung out on my own handiwork pretending to listen as I prattle on about what the fuck ever I want. And the silence, this awkward seven second pause as I consider his condition, is starting to make him nervous. He needs stimulus, some kind of cadence to keep that high perfectly paced. Yeah, I can do that.
"You ever get the feeling there's something you're missing? That whatever it is, you're just not going to find it here, no matter where here is?" Talk about cutting right to the marrow. I slip a hand down into one of my pockets, fidget with a caplet I slopped together earlier. Same shit I gave him saved for myself, for later. But maybe it'd do me some good now. "I've been feeling that way all my life. Since I was tiny. Parents had cash, power, pretty little toys. I was just one of them. The toys I mean. Something to play with, something to shape." Pop the pill past my lips. Swallow it dry. "I was supposed to be a doctor, just like mom." Bitter, acrid. I always hate that taste on my tongue. "Guess you could say I am, but not the way they'd have liked. All that schooling just so I could cut up criminals." Mmmm, and there it is: that shock of accuity, of brilliant awareness all turned inward before evening out into a nice bioelectric buzz. "Mmm, but to what wonderful practical use have I put my education." His thick lips twitch into a grin of recognition. Something I'd said broke through the static.
His voice has taken on this lazy edge, the slow drawl of someone trying to keep precise control on words moving too fast through their head. "They don't teach anything useful in school anyway. All brainwashing bullshit so we can become corporate drones, slaves to the metamind..."
"Positively Lovecraftian, Peter." Shit. His name is Peter, right? He's gone again anyway, lost in his own thoughts. And mine? I'm stuck in the pages of some comic book I'd grabbed a couple years ago to keep me busy on the busride between no and maybe. Seemed somewhat prophetic to me: the world falling under the control of megacorps run by the Elder Gods from outer space or some shit like that. Stolen theme. Not repeated. Not the same. "It's funny how everything repeats." Did I say that aloud? Might as well. "On so many levels. It's easier to think of it from a close perspective, personal. My life? It's all just the same shit cycled over and over, the same themes, the same concepts. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. It's unavoidable. Life is cyclical. Always will be. At the end of every journey, there's a new one waiting to start. Always another bus terminal, ya know?" No, he doesn't know. He doesn't care. Tonight, I like this anonymity, this utter obliteration of self and importance, or this complete immersion in self-importance. Perspective, right?
"You pull back, though, and you can see how history really does repeat itself, how we tell the same old stories with different names. Been doing it for millennia." I'm rambling. Not even keeping myself interested anymore. "It's funny, though. When I dropped out and left home, I thought I was breaking the cycle. Maybe I did. It's not like I can ever go back. Not now. I don't even exist anymore. It's not important." Shit. My thoughts are racing. Too fast. Too quick to pull me out of the past when all I want is to push forward. "I thought I'd find depth if I crept beneath the city's skin, and maybe I have. I mean, look at us." My turn to flash a cocky little grin. Yeah, he's gone, eyes all vacant and spaced. "Can't even tell the difference between substance and substances, can we now, Pete?"
No more point in talking. I held his hand to the edge and now it's my turn. Head reeling back into memories. I ran into Erik the other day, same chilly bastard who got me toting SMGs. Left Detroit couple years back, apparently. Shows how aware I am. Wonder if he'd still be ammenable to a quick fuck every now and again... There's a shiver shooting its way up my spine, and I think for a moment that I could make this one fun, drag him back to my place and take advantage of that not-gonna-remember-me stare he's got. Cheap thrills are better than no thrills at all, right? He's not worth my time though. Conspiracy theorist who only looks at the surface, can't see past the megacorps to the blood beneath, the patterns, the myths in endless repetition. I'm starting to feel insubstantial now, disembodied. I should get up, keep moving. Not a safe place to space out. I press my lips to his, pull him from his reverie into something he likely thinks just a dream, and step back out into the neon night.
Someone said once that it was more about the journey than the destination, right? Maybe all this going around in circles is getting me somewhere, then, in the philosophical sense. I pace the same four city blocks for three hours straight, catch glimpses of the same shady faces, draw a cat call or three. Funny how it's never the pretty ones they actually approach. I always see these sleaze bags chatting up some homely little gutter punk, but they keep their distance from me. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. That's just the way it is everywhere. It doesn't matter what city I'm in. That's something I've certainly learned over the years. There's always work to be done: someone to cut up, something to blow up, someone who wants to get fucked up. People, buildings, chemicals, machinery, psyches... it's really all the same structures repeated endlessly. We perpetuate the patterns in everything we build, an echo of ourselves passed down to our designs.
If we know ourselves, then we know everything.
The problem is that we already know ourselves. We can't not know ourselves. It's an essential part of existence. But from birth we're taught to rationalize, to compartmentalize, to seperate, to regulate. By the time we pass puberty, we've lost ourselves under all the bullshit everyone else has been feeding us. So we have to choose: do we spend the rest of our lives bound to these lies or do we learn how to forget them?
Of course, option three is something entirely different. Cept, I have very little concept of the world or what'll be useful or how the game's played and how I'd like to play it. And there's near-nothing online for newbie resources. Don't wanna have to buy a book, nor wait till I get to game to get even a feel for what I'm up for playing as chargen always takes me a while. If anyone knows any good online resources with information on skills and archetypes, that'd help. I could also, I think, poke at that mush again. Going through chargen there might help me sort things out. Wish I'd saved a copy of her character sheet. I imagine she's been long-since idle-wiped.
Just playing with ideas...
Option number one is to play Dre, the girl I'm playing in the Serenity game. She'd work very well in a cyberpunk setting as her insanity deals specifically with data-awareness, noticing patterns, intuitive hacking. She sees interconnectedness, believes it's a part of her spiritual path. So long as she's focused and following the right path, she's on top of her game. When she isn't, though, she loses that calm capability to frantic figurings. She's a fun character to play. But I don't want to be playing her concurrently in two games in two different settings. I'm just not entirely optimistic about the Friday night game right now. It's either going to go fairly well or die a quick death. We'll see.
Option number two is to play that character I'd conjured up to play on that mush. She's essentially a doctor, there to fix you up when things go bad. Or to hook you up and make things better. Heavy into pharmaceuticals with no objection to using what she makes. Loves demolition and mythology as well. A lay philosopher. I'd written a bio for her a while back.
"Yeah, but how'd you end up in Denver?" His eyes are already getting that half-here, glazed-over look; his attention's wandering to the flicker of neon behind me.
I shrug, but I doubt he notices. "Same way I ended up in Chicago. Same way I ended up in Detroit. And every other fucking city I've crashed about in for the last six years. By bus." Sure, it wasn't what he was looking for, but his reaction, or lack thereof, tells me everything I needed to know: he isn't listening anymore. Neither is anyone else for that matter. Everyone wrapped up in their own deals, their own drugs, their own dilemmas. And here I am with mine: some junkie strung out on my own handiwork pretending to listen as I prattle on about what the fuck ever I want. And the silence, this awkward seven second pause as I consider his condition, is starting to make him nervous. He needs stimulus, some kind of cadence to keep that high perfectly paced. Yeah, I can do that.
"You ever get the feeling there's something you're missing? That whatever it is, you're just not going to find it here, no matter where here is?" Talk about cutting right to the marrow. I slip a hand down into one of my pockets, fidget with a caplet I slopped together earlier. Same shit I gave him saved for myself, for later. But maybe it'd do me some good now. "I've been feeling that way all my life. Since I was tiny. Parents had cash, power, pretty little toys. I was just one of them. The toys I mean. Something to play with, something to shape." Pop the pill past my lips. Swallow it dry. "I was supposed to be a doctor, just like mom." Bitter, acrid. I always hate that taste on my tongue. "Guess you could say I am, but not the way they'd have liked. All that schooling just so I could cut up criminals." Mmmm, and there it is: that shock of accuity, of brilliant awareness all turned inward before evening out into a nice bioelectric buzz. "Mmm, but to what wonderful practical use have I put my education." His thick lips twitch into a grin of recognition. Something I'd said broke through the static.
His voice has taken on this lazy edge, the slow drawl of someone trying to keep precise control on words moving too fast through their head. "They don't teach anything useful in school anyway. All brainwashing bullshit so we can become corporate drones, slaves to the metamind..."
"Positively Lovecraftian, Peter." Shit. His name is Peter, right? He's gone again anyway, lost in his own thoughts. And mine? I'm stuck in the pages of some comic book I'd grabbed a couple years ago to keep me busy on the busride between no and maybe. Seemed somewhat prophetic to me: the world falling under the control of megacorps run by the Elder Gods from outer space or some shit like that. Stolen theme. Not repeated. Not the same. "It's funny how everything repeats." Did I say that aloud? Might as well. "On so many levels. It's easier to think of it from a close perspective, personal. My life? It's all just the same shit cycled over and over, the same themes, the same concepts. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. It's unavoidable. Life is cyclical. Always will be. At the end of every journey, there's a new one waiting to start. Always another bus terminal, ya know?" No, he doesn't know. He doesn't care. Tonight, I like this anonymity, this utter obliteration of self and importance, or this complete immersion in self-importance. Perspective, right?
"You pull back, though, and you can see how history really does repeat itself, how we tell the same old stories with different names. Been doing it for millennia." I'm rambling. Not even keeping myself interested anymore. "It's funny, though. When I dropped out and left home, I thought I was breaking the cycle. Maybe I did. It's not like I can ever go back. Not now. I don't even exist anymore. It's not important." Shit. My thoughts are racing. Too fast. Too quick to pull me out of the past when all I want is to push forward. "I thought I'd find depth if I crept beneath the city's skin, and maybe I have. I mean, look at us." My turn to flash a cocky little grin. Yeah, he's gone, eyes all vacant and spaced. "Can't even tell the difference between substance and substances, can we now, Pete?"
No more point in talking. I held his hand to the edge and now it's my turn. Head reeling back into memories. I ran into Erik the other day, same chilly bastard who got me toting SMGs. Left Detroit couple years back, apparently. Shows how aware I am. Wonder if he'd still be ammenable to a quick fuck every now and again... There's a shiver shooting its way up my spine, and I think for a moment that I could make this one fun, drag him back to my place and take advantage of that not-gonna-remember-me stare he's got. Cheap thrills are better than no thrills at all, right? He's not worth my time though. Conspiracy theorist who only looks at the surface, can't see past the megacorps to the blood beneath, the patterns, the myths in endless repetition. I'm starting to feel insubstantial now, disembodied. I should get up, keep moving. Not a safe place to space out. I press my lips to his, pull him from his reverie into something he likely thinks just a dream, and step back out into the neon night.
Someone said once that it was more about the journey than the destination, right? Maybe all this going around in circles is getting me somewhere, then, in the philosophical sense. I pace the same four city blocks for three hours straight, catch glimpses of the same shady faces, draw a cat call or three. Funny how it's never the pretty ones they actually approach. I always see these sleaze bags chatting up some homely little gutter punk, but they keep their distance from me. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. That's just the way it is everywhere. It doesn't matter what city I'm in. That's something I've certainly learned over the years. There's always work to be done: someone to cut up, something to blow up, someone who wants to get fucked up. People, buildings, chemicals, machinery, psyches... it's really all the same structures repeated endlessly. We perpetuate the patterns in everything we build, an echo of ourselves passed down to our designs.
If we know ourselves, then we know everything.
The problem is that we already know ourselves. We can't not know ourselves. It's an essential part of existence. But from birth we're taught to rationalize, to compartmentalize, to seperate, to regulate. By the time we pass puberty, we've lost ourselves under all the bullshit everyone else has been feeding us. So we have to choose: do we spend the rest of our lives bound to these lies or do we learn how to forget them?
Of course, option three is something entirely different. Cept, I have very little concept of the world or what'll be useful or how the game's played and how I'd like to play it. And there's near-nothing online for newbie resources. Don't wanna have to buy a book, nor wait till I get to game to get even a feel for what I'm up for playing as chargen always takes me a while. If anyone knows any good online resources with information on skills and archetypes, that'd help. I could also, I think, poke at that mush again. Going through chargen there might help me sort things out. Wish I'd saved a copy of her character sheet. I imagine she's been long-since idle-wiped.
Just playing with ideas...