[Morg]

Pink Mohawk: Full out Punk, the good guys never win, the bad guys are worse than the sociopaths, and over-the-top action is how you do things. Bring lots of drugs and even more ammo!

Mirrorshades: Far more professional and strict. Lots of planning, detail, contacts used, preparation, and use of the mind. Corruption is strife, however, and unless you've gone on a double-digit murder spree of security and police officers, freedom is only a bribe to the right person away.

Trenchcoat: A combination of the two. You start out Mirrorshades, but when/if something goes wrong, the coats come off and the 'hawks come out, complete with Gatling Guns and PACs.

yes i know the more common Phrase is Black Trenchcoat , I use Canray's definition because the post is about extremes and not the middle ground. (Don't worry Canray I will plagiarize you again someday) 

So to the reason I wrote this

Are there any virtues to introducing players new to Shadowrun with an extreme game style such as Pink Mohawk and Mirrorshades rather then Trenchcoat.
As a GM if you had to choose, would you want to run a Pink Mohawk or a Mirrorshades game
As player if you had to choose, would you want to play a Pink Mohawk or a Mirrorshades game
If you have any storytelling techniques  about either style please share


I find Pink Mohawk games are a great teaching tool for combat and movement mechanics. I find it normally works best with younger players
I have found Mirrorshadest tends to teach legwork and in game lore rapidly

As a GM I enjoy running Pink Mohawk campaigns

Right now I am playing both Pink Mohawk (Morg) and Mirrorshades (Shadowrider) game styles via play by post I think I am liking the story immersion of the Mirrorshades game but my choice may be different in a face to face game

When running a Mirrorshades game I find sprinkling clues tells the story better then  large amounts of NPC interaction. If you are going to do this it is good practice to repeat the information you want the players to have in at least 3 different places in case of a bad die roll or inattention, remember you want them to find it to advance the plot. as for Pinki Mohawk keep the pacing at break neck speed and handwave often if the players could easily do something by buying successes use it to keep it cinematic .

(your turn reader)

[CitizenJoe]

Pink mohawks for convention or one-off game play in person
Mirrorshades online.
Trenchcoats for campaign level play.

[Mirikon]

Depends on your group, and your play style. In the end, the players determine the tone of the game far more than the DM does.

[Mara]

As a GM, I prefer Pink Mohawk...as a player, I enjoy my GM going "Wait..you did what with a what? *whimper* Those POOR
guards!" (On the battletech forums, I actually try and take notes from the Falchion Do Nots threads)

Basicly, I believe that whatever I, as a GM, plan is going to be tilted on its side, with grenades thrown into the gas tanks,
so....I am as much along for the ride as the players!

[JustADude]

As a GM, I prefer Pink Mohawk...as a player, I enjoy my GM going "Wait..you did what with a what? *whimper* Those POOR
guards!" (On the battletech forums, I actually try and take notes from the Falchion Do Nots threads)

Basicly, I believe that whatever I, as a GM, plan is going to be tilted on its side, with grenades thrown into the gas tanks,
so....I am as much along for the ride as the players!

Also, gotta disrupt a shipping company? Hack their mainframe to disrupt their blueprints and reroute all their shipments so that you get all their output and raw material for a week... delivered to several anonymously rented warehouses, of course. Fence all of it you can and give the rest away to your Contacts to get more Loyalty. Make 10x the original payday... each.

[Mara]

Also, gotta disrupt a shipping company? Hack their mainframe to disrupt their blueprints and reroute all their shipments so that you get all their output and raw material for a week... delivered to several anonymously rented warehouses, of course. Fence all of it you can and give the rest away to your Contacts to get more Loyalty. Make 10x the original payday... each.

Nah. That is too *pauses, looking for the right word* Normal. Anyone would do that! How about a tricked out sports car with Rocket Boosters, Flying Fox system, and a Ram Plate, though? Or fly-spies with explosive self-destruct mechanism? Or monowire around
a small amount of explosive....

[JustADude]

Also, gotta disrupt a shipping company? Hack their mainframe to disrupt their blueprints and reroute all their shipments so that you get all their output and raw material for a week... delivered to several anonymously rented warehouses, of course. Fence all of it you can and give the rest away to your Contacts to get more Loyalty. Make 10x the original payday... each.

Nah. That is too *pauses, looking for the right word* Normal. Anyone would do that! How about a tricked out sports car with Rocket Boosters, Flying Fox system, and a Ram Plate, though? Or fly-spies with explosive self-destruct mechanism? Or monowire around a small amount of explosive....

Ah, but what we did was worse. We had our Hacker cook up some really good fake IDs, and sent the Face in posing as something more feared more than any of that stuff... an honest OSHA Inspector! Had them cowering and groveling for almost a whole day while the hacker, posing as an assistant, was given full access to almost everything in the facility under the guise of "inspecting" and was able to do the rest without anyone raising an eyebrow.

[golan2072]

While I usually play in a middle-ground between Mirrorshades and Pink Mohawk, if I'm forced to choose I'll definitely choose Pink Mohawk; after all, it highlights what Shadowrun is good at, and that's the Cool Factor and the colour. And, besides, I can have as much Mirrorshades (actually, Mirrorfaceplate ) in my Traveller games.

Anyhow, as I've already said, my Shadowrun campaigns combine a relatively believable (in SR terms, that is) setting, though I do add various Pink Mohawk elements as a spice to make things interesting. For example, metahumans, metavariants, SURGE, magic and obvious augmentations tend to be more common in my games (including in NPCs) than in SR canon.

[Mason]

MOHAWK!

I mean, seriously, I just had Harlequin cast an enormous spell to make leylines visible to the mundane eye in all of Seattle just to demonstrate a point he was making, and when he aborted the spell, the leyline all surged and then every latent changeling in Seattle changed at the same time...in 2053! Ridiculous is where it's at in my game! Screw logic!

[Crash_00]

Depends on the campaign I'm running, but I lean toward extremes. My shadowrun games tend to be heavy black trenchcoat/mirrorshades with a healthy dose of Die Hard. If I want Action Movie styled pink mohawk, I'll play Feng Shui.

Then again, I like my shadows deep and dark and my runs brutal and gritty. It's a distopia after all. 2072 has just added an AR gleam to that reality.

[CanRay]

AR lets you erase things you don't want to see, so Wageslaves think the world is better.

Shadowrunners use AR to help them see dangers, so they know the world is worse.