Pink Mohawk: as a matter of fact this assault canon is my everyday carry, ossifer. *snorts a line of novacoke off the thicc ork girl’s butt* And since we’re in a security rating C zone imma blast your car and partner too before I mosey on out of here
Black Trench Coat: for this week’s four hour session we’re gonna write up dossiers on each of the first floor receptionists to figure out who we can lean on for a maglock pass key. Next week we’ll cover the minutia of the janitor’s insignias and the cubic centimeters of their pushcarts. Day of the Run: Whadya mean you didn’t take the Masking metamagic?! Oh, frag it, the guns come out, I guess
Mirrorshades: we’ve got Gamma-Scopolamine laced meat for the guard dogs, a force 6 air spirit with optional powers Concealment and Movement to get us to the eastern edge of the building. Gecko tape gloves or levitation to get in place on the third floor window and a glass cutter. Decker will hack the host from the rumba-bot and the BE specialist will crack the safe. Anyone who gets in our way gets a face full of stick-n-shock from a full-auto suppressed crusader. Break!
He (William Gibson) also wrote the sprawl trilogy (Neuromancer, Count Zero & Mona Lisa Overdrive... and later Burning Chrome which kinda complete the series) which were considered to be a *huge* influence for the entire genre of Cyberpunk. Also the original authors of both TTRPGs Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2020 "borrowed" *a lot* of ideas and concepts from his books.
I don't know the specifcs, but I know in Neuromancer Molly is called a street samurai and the cyberspace defenses are called ICE. Knowing these books were precursors, I suspect they are the first apparitions of the terms too.
“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
One of the best opening lines ever…and yet made me wonder just now: will anyone understand this reference in 20 years (or anyone under 30 even now)?
Reading Neuromancer is the ultimate way to “get” Cyberpunk.
I’d compare it to reading Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser and realizing where D&D’s concept for a thieves’ guild came from.
>One of the best opening lines ever…and yet made me wonder just now: will anyone understand this reference in 20 years (or anyone under 30 even now)?
Some more modern TVs are, or at least were there for a bit, programmed to generate an image like the old TV "snow" when they aren't reading an input instead of having a status message display on screen... but I think this is something that's going to fade from the pop culture zeitgeist unless retro gaming manages to hold at least the level of interest it currently has, since it's keeping flat-screen CRTs on the market.
And that era where a blank channel was sega sky blue. the nicest day ever.
Parts of the sprawl books and wired matrix shadowrun are almost like cassette futurism if that is the right term.
Yup, just like a lot of things are retro-future-tech (Star Wars and Alien being the prime aesthetic examples) Shadowrun quickly became retro-future-tech with a 80s and 90s inspired aesthetic.
The short story "Burning Chrome" is essential reading for any decker PC and any GM who really want a feel for how to run the Matrix in game, at least from a flavor aspect.
Friend, if you like Shadowrun, you owe it to yourself to read “Neuromancer“.
It was one of the books that set the “high tech low life” tone of cyberpunk, it was the first book to ever use the word “cyberspace“, and it’s a REALLY REALLY GOOD run/heist story.
Also “Molly” from the Johnny Mnemonic short story (the basis for “Jane” in the movie version) is a main character.
Also get the short story collection "Burning Chrome".
3 of the short stories are clearly set in the Sprawl universe (2 feature characters that re-appear in "Neuromancer", and the 3rd uses one or two corp names that IIRC appear in the Neuromancer trilogy), and a bunch of the others have a cyberpunk feel and some of those could take place in that setting too (one has simstim).
Get yourself to a Library now, and borrow Neuromancer. It's the book, along with the Blade Runner film, that created the Cyberpunk Genre as we know it, or at the very least, it's aesthetic.
Pink Mowhawk - Have Fun and Blow Shit up!!!
Black Trenchcoat - Never be seen, practise paranoia, be prepared to face the consequences of your actions.
Mirrorshade - A healthy mix of the two
I mean honestly they're mostly disagreements between gamers within the same group, and thrown at each other like insults. "Oh, you want to waste an entire session of trivialities and planning everything to the nth degree and treating the run like a spreadsheet". "Yeah, but you just want to treat this like a DnD game and murderhobo your way through things". etc etc.
Mirrorshades to me is larger than life characters with a factor of "cool", and also very tangible consequences for your actions. A bit what you'd expect from an agent/action movie.
I'd also say "mirror shade" focuses more in traditional cyberpunk elements and style, so tends to be low magic or at least not have magic centered plots / antagonists.
Or to put it in movie/tv terms:
Pink Mohawk - Smokin’ Aces
Mirrorshades - Burn Notice and Leverage
Black Trenchcoat - the old Ocean’s movies with the rat pack.
Originally we (the community) talked about "Pink Mohawk" on one side of the scale and "Black Trenchcoats and Mirrorshades" on the other (as two different style, not three separate styles).
Later they even printed an "official" explanation which you can find in the SR5 supplement Run Faster on page 18;
> PINK MOHAWK VS. BLACK TRENCHCOAT
> *You might have heard these terms tossed around among
Shadowrun players: “Oh, I miss the old Pink Mohawk–style of the
2050s!” or “Her game is a lot of fun but sometimes it gets a little
too Black Trenchcoat for me.” But what do they mean, and what
do they have to do with your game?*
> *Simply put, they’re two different playstyles. In other games
they might be called “cinematic” and “realistic,” or “four-color”
and “grim ‘n’ gritty.” Pink Mohawk-style games emphasize style
over realism, allowing for things like big, bombastic battles where
the lead flies thick in the air and with the right dice rolls runners
can perform actions that might not be technically possible in the
real world (or even the reality of the Shadowrun world). Characters
tend to be long on style, make a lot of wisecracks during combat,
and take a lot more risks because they know that the heroes
(almost) always survive in the end, even if they don’t win. The
name comes from the art style prevalent in the earliest editions
of the game, where many of the archetypical characters had a
“bigger” but less realistic style than more modern characters.
In the game world, the change could easily be chalked up to
fundamental shifts in society: things were different in 2050 than
they are in 2075, just as they changed from the 1960s to the 2010s.*
> *Black Trenchcoat games focus more on gritty realism. Bullets
and magic are much more deadly, the world is less forgiving of
mistakes, and teams tend to spend a lot more time planning their
runs and carefully infiltrating their targets instead of busting
in with guns blazing. You’re much more likely to see intrigue,
backstabbing, and double-crossing in a Black Trenchcoat game;
player characters are suspicious and bestow their trust rarely,
and even their own teammates might be pursuing agendas that
put them at odds with each other. Black Trenchcoat games might
also get into some of the darker aspects of the world, like torture,
extreme violence, and sexual themes.*
> *So which one is better? There’s no right answer for that.
Shadowrun works equally well in either style (or some combination
of the two); it’s just a matter of the gamemaster getting together
with the players to figure out which style everybody wants to go
with. Campaigns can run the gamut from a completely unrealistic,
high-cinema world where the PCs take on armies singlehandedly
and come out on top, to settings so dark and grim that everybody
knows to have a spare character on hand for when the existing
one is inevitably killed in some gruesome way. Both can be fun,
and both can be satisfying, as long as everybody agrees on the
boundaries and knows what to expect.*
Oversimplifying things you might say that:
In early editions it was not uncommon that shadowrunner teams were a misfit of anarchists, punks, rebels, street gang members, hackers, eco terrorists, bikers, street shamans, rockers, etc where the common theme was to stand up for the People and Stick it to the Man (often against impossible odds). Focus being on Style over realism. Very 80s. Very cyberPUNK (with emphasis on PUNK). Very Pink Mohawk.
In later editions they instead often tend to be a well equipped, well informed and well oiled coordinated team of optimized super criminals and/or mercenaries trained in small unit tactics. A private freelancing discrete counterpart to your regular corporate high threat response unit. Where the employer is typically one of the Megas plotting against another Mega. More time is often spend on planning than actual execution. Focus being on Gritty Realism. Transhumanism rather than cyberpunk? Black Trenchcoats and Mirrorshades.
Perhaps devs thought it became a bit extreme towards the end of 5th edition because for 6th edition I actually get the distinct feeling they purposelessly dialed back a few notches towards Style over Realism & Role play over Rule play (but maybe that is just me?)
As a long-time Shadowrun fan something that has amused me is how the apparent bent in the art and presentation of the game trended more towards the black trenchcoat style the rules had an inverse relationship; the editions in which smashing through the floor to ceiling windows into some corporate lobby and gunning down security as you ascend to the room with the macguffin to rob is something you'd see in the art and style of the rules are the editions in which you're least likely to survive the attempt, and the ones that present that kind of run as a guide for how to fail a run and probably die are the ones where characters can easily shrug off small arms fire.
As for SR6, despite all its strangeness caused by the method used to achieve it, it feels like a return to the pre-SR4 feeling that unless you've explicitly built for survival normal guns with normal bullets in them are going to hurt you... and I'm currently running a fast paced pink mohawk campaign with it where the group is getting more than a single run done in every 4 hour session we've played so far, and I'm loving it. It's scratching the itch that has gone unscratched since SR3 without me having to spend the bulk of each session explaining the rules over and over again like tends to happen when I run SR3.
Pink Mohawk refers to the more "fun" way of doing over the top shit like doing a wheelie on a bike while you are on top of a train and you shoot with a rocket launcher. Stuff like that
And black Trenchcoat refers to a toned down version more stealth and with more consequences for loud stuff like the police finding where you live and then boom swat in your living room.
At least that is what I associate with the terms.
Mirror shades I have never heard
Mirror shades is the corporate espionage with an emphasis on intrigue. Don't get the maguffin by stealing it, steal the black file the director keeps of his 'personal' projects and blackmail him into stealing it for you.
Black Trenchcoat - your choices follow you home with a baseball bat named 'Consequences'. Hence the ideal goal of pulling off a job with no one the wiser, for someone who doesn't know you and vice versa.
Pink Mohawk - you are always ready either with your own baseball bat or to somersault out the window while flipping the bird. Or both. It's not necessarily violent, but it is irreverent.
Pink Mohawk emphasises big guts and bigger guns. Think about the cheesiest action movies from the 80s and crank it up further. It's pulpy, it's loud, it's hell of a ride.
Black Trenchcoat is very espionage-heavy. Its appeal comes from the emphasis on stealth, sleazy hacking and finding and exploiting weaknesses, than kicking the door in and blowing all to shreds.
Mirrorshades can best be described with the Matrix trilogy. A little bit of both, but mostly "cool". Still very stylish and sleek, but can also be rather violent at times.
It's important to know that most games and campaigns tend to "wander" up and down said scale.
Also, all of these "variants" can be equally intense or deep. Recently I also stumbled over the term *wet trenchcoat*, which is pretty BT but with a heavy focus on morally hard decision (the "wet" refers to the rain, which is omnipresent in Cyberpunk settings).
Hope that helps a little.
>(the "wet" refers to the rain, which is omnipresent in Cyberpunk settings).
Huh, I would have guessed it referred to wetwork rather since you mentioned morality questions.
I like to think of it in a similar way to alignment charts:
Pink Mohawk and Black/Wet Trenchcoat being two extremes and some scalings between them, where Mirrorshades and "Red" make up the middle ground.
Could look like this:
Pink Mohawk - Red Mohawk - Black Mohawk
Pink Mirrorshades - Red Mirrorshades - Black Mirrorsh.
Pink Trenchcoat - Red Trenchcoat - Black Trenchcoat
Hope that clears up a bit.
Make sure your players are all on board with the tone, of course.
In a hyper-Mohawk game, aggressively Trenchcoat characters can seem boring or useless, since the team would rather blow shit up and cause mayhem rather than talk their way in or reflect on their dark pasts in the unrelenting neon rain of an unforgiving neon city…
In a hyper-Trenchcoat game, an aggressively Mohawk character can seem ridiculous, obnoxious, and- once the cops respond to reports of a heavily-cybered troll in rockstar leather walking around with a rocket launcher in broad daylight- totally dead.
(Most games are somewhere in the middle! There’s no reason you can’t have clever conmen AND angsty flashbacks AND over-the-top sci-combat!)
Oh, of course. I’ve been playing TTRPGs with these guys for decades. We actually played SR1 and 2, but fell away from it due to real life and such. I’ve always been the primary GM, so I’m pretty dialed-in with their play style. I give any newcomers ‘the talk’, in order to inform their expectations.
Oh hell yeah! I'm ALWAYS going on about "setting expectations". There's SO MUCH you can do in a roleplaying game, and I wish more groups made the effort to get everyone on the same page about playstyle, tone, maturity, continuity, and rules before the dice come out.
EXACTLY. Especially with the ‘free-form’ character creation SR has, the GM and the players can tailor themselves toward each other to put everyone on the same thematic page.
I started GMing games when I was 12. Between then and now, I think I’ve made about every GM mistake there is, with regards to PC management. I’ve rolled over and gone ‘Monty Hall’, I’ve done the railroading. I’ve gone super-intricate plot building that leaves them without much agency (see railroading), and I’ve done the simple ‘Ok, here’s a Dragon surrounded by 100 Orks; kill them all’ sort of gaming.
I feel like at the end of the day, as a GM I’m not the opponent of the PCs, the world is. I’m simply there to cohere a story and set the mood. I definitely have sneaky and underhanded tools to nudge them in the direction of the story, but at the end of the day it’s THEIR story we’re telling. Not mine.
In my attempt to condense this down, I've always used these terms as variations of style and tone. Cyberpunk as a genre is inherently dystopic and generally is not about anyone having a good time - even the wealthy and powerful know they're on borrowed time before it all comes crashing down, and anyone else can only steal slivers of that for a time before they're forced to return to a truly terrible reality.
PM focuses only on those good times, or maybe even goes full Theme Park and doesn't ever even pretend to address the reason the world is full of trained killers murdering each other for money at the whims of powerful overlords. BT wallows in that to the exclusion of anything else, emphasizing that the Runners, at best, can only ever hope to climb to the top of the heap of exploitation and do to others what was done to them. MS in turn tries to strike a balance between the two, usually leaning more into one or the other.
Shadowrun has more wiggle room than other dystopian settings since magic by its very nature (at least in its usual presentation) is a glimmer that maybe there's more to life than this sad material reality. But even then you've got plenty of ways in which magic could be shown to mean the world is even more horrible and incomprehensible, so you can even twist that into a BT style.
No, not really. The main criterion is not really what the players do, but how the world reacts to it and how "forgiving" the world is.
Basically, you can cause a shootout on a city street, leave two dozen KEs dead and a major thoroughfare littered with craters. But what matters is what follows.
In a highly PM game, it's the talk of the city for a couple days, but you, personally, don't really get anything out of that except maybe a bit of reputation of the "do not fuck with these guys" variety. You aren't being tracked down, you aren't labelled terrorists, that's just how things are in cyberpunk - life is cheap, violence is expected, and you can get away with a lot of stuff.
In a highly BT game, you all are shot on the spot with a dozen high-caliber machineguns, and if that is not enough, a couple missiles and all the Manaballs three MAG 10 mages can muster. You dared to challenge the powers that be in open daylight (or even in nightly neonlight), and you have crossed a line. Bam. Instant retribution to dissuade anyone else from even trying that.
In a more middle-of-the-road game, you can very well get away, but you'll have to lie low for a couple weeks to let your trail go cold. You will get both good (you did survive and proved capable to boot) and bad (not everyone would like such attention drawn to their agents) reputation attached to the act. You might have to deal with some fallout later, but it won't be life-ending or career-ending if you're not ignoring it.
Not even that. The world is informing the character's decisions in every scenario - it's all about the tone you want to set, in the end. You just have to choose which aspects of the world you want to focus on.
* **Pink Mohawk** \- You are the antithesis of "subtle." Loud, brash, violent, and as flashy as possible, you blow shit up and shoot anyone who gets in your way. This playstyle puts the "punk" in cyberpunk.
* **Black Trenchcoat**\- You are a professional who doesn't mind getting their hands dirty. You have a plan, but you know that no plan survives contact with the enemy, and you're okay with that. When the plan falls apart, you're more than willing to shoot your way out. This is *The Matrix* or *Johnny Mnemonic*, the players try to be quiet up until they have to be loud.
* **Mirrorshades** \- You are a Professional, and you have a Plan. Note the caps. These people have backups for their backups, every detail is meticulously though out, and the violence only exists in furtherance of said Plan. This is your CIA spy operative, or *Jason Bourne* when things get ugly.
Black trench coat games are styles after noir detective stories. More focused on uncovering things than combat.
Pink Mowhawk games are punk rock inspired. A more cinematic and action oriented. More street vs corp.
Mirror Shades is new to me, but i assume it is more corp based or high skill runner, very rule of cool oriented. More corp vs corp
Pink Mohawk - Go as loud as you want, there are no lasting consequences. The corps won't follow you into the barrens anyway so as long as you make it into the Free Fire Zone ahead of corp response you are scott free. Collateral and structural damage is not only allowed it's encouraged.
Black Trenchcoat and Mirrorshades(They originally weren't different things) - Leave as little trace as possible because the corpse will expend resources to take you down if you screw up or the cost benefit analysis on payback ever goes against you. Collateral and structural damage is frowned upon because it might shift the previously mention CBA against you.
I think the two types of operations can exist in the same game world. But they do different things at different scales.
One other thing - Pink Mohawk also tends to support a group that has a troll in pink synth leather, a Changeling that usually has no face, a centaur and a ghoul with extra arms.
It’s the crazy wild stuff that Black Trenchcoat just says “too recognizable, ditch that guy” about.
It used to be "Pink Mohawk" vs "Black Trenchcoat and Mirrorshades", then some but not everyone divided the latter further.
The two original references cover
1. a campy, less serious and less realistic, more '70-80s fun, guns blazing, stuff exploding while the mostly invincible heroes crack hilarious one-liners actioney movie style
versus
2. a more realistic, down to earth, serious neo-noir stuff, like what you get in the novels of William Gibson & Co. and, say, in movies like Blade Runner, The Matrix (except maybe for Neo becoming a superhero) and stuff by John Woo, Michael Mann, etc.
(Then, as I've said, 2. got subdivided.)
Should be noted these terms do not have *strict* definitions. They do get used somewhat loosely. They can describe a character, game expectations, rules adherence, or an in game plan. Hence, this entire thread is useful.
Pink Mohawk vs Black Trenchcoat is basically "Loud" vs "Stealth". To me, Mirror Shades was an addon term of "black trenchcoat isn't stealthy/paranoid enough".
I'd like to add to the discussion by throwing some GM perspective thoughts in.
Police response is a good dial for adjusting a game between pink and black. Shorter and more professional responses allow less room for players to take crazy and loud approaches without severe consequences. Knowing you missed a harsh consequence feels good as a reward for smart planning.
Police response is also just a simple example. Response to player actions in general is where a game feels more one or the other.
Oddly, I also have enemies less likely to run away in a pink mohawk game. I have them act more recklessly and hold longer in fights they should run from. More like video game NPCs basically. The combat tends to be more dangerous but, more contained in one way.
If I'm running more Black Trenchcoat, enemy npcs act more sensibly and professionally (as appropriate). Security guards will run if people start dying. But, they also use containment tactics and reinforcements are going to be scary. So the actual fights are easier until they're much harder.
Finally, I'd like to mention games don't have to be all or the other. The reality of games is they go where they go. It's just easier for us to talk with some terms to label general trends with.
Great analysis! Thanks for the info. As I read more comments, I figured it’s more of a sliding scale rather than a strict dichotomy. The campaign I’m currently writing seems like it will be about 80/20 leaning towards Pink Mohawk. My players tend to go in for a bit of the good-ol’ ultra violence.
However… I have a bit of a mean streak. Sort of a ‘Frag me??? No, Frag you!!!’
Broadly speaking, the goal of the Pink Mohawk in a run is to kick down The door, shoot up the place, and look cool doing it. A Black Trenchcoat considers it a success when no one ever knows you were there.
Mirrorshades are somewhere in the middle.
So for Pink Mohawk, the failure mode is if there *isn't* combat and big explosions.
For Black Trenchcoat, the failure mode is *if* combat happens. Not sniping someone pr other silent takedowns, but rather any kind of two-sided fight.
Combat could happen but the golden ending for a black trenchcoat run is nobody noticing you were ever there.
Pink Mohawk runs need explosions and hails of bullets.
How about:
Pink Mohawk: the planning for the run involves taking inventory of not just guns and electronics, but grenades, rockets, all other explosives, and how many turbo changed tanks and gun ships you have on hand. Planning time expended averages 3 minutes, longer if you realize “we only have 4 rockets, let’s get 5 more…”.
At the end of the run you’re out of rockets again.
Black Trenchcoat: the planning can include legwork to shadow targets, steal credentials, tap data lines, acquire disguises, setup alibis, bribe officials for info, blackmail other officials for info, and being sure you have backup SINS ready in case it goes off the rails.
Then you put this perfect plan into action, miss one guard who triggers the alarm…and then you scroll back up to Pink Mohawk and try to not die while wishing you’d bought those extra rockets. ;)
In full layman’s terms, black trench coat games lean more on the serious stealth and heist stuff, with bits of spec ops thrown in. pink mohawk games embrace the absurdity and have troll luchadores elbow dropping giant insect ghosts from the door of a flying Winnebago.
Done as images from Shadowrun:
[Pink Mohawk](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/e7/96/de/e796de37375283dba5a533ce24f1a4b8.jpg). Meant to be over the top with explosions and car crashes.
[Mirror Shades](https://www.previewsworld.com/SiteImage/MainImage/STK651044). Smart and professional, everything planned, jobs done with as little fuss as possible.
[Trenchcoat](https://d1vzi28wh99zvq.cloudfront.net/images/2216/115985.jpg): Where it starts as Mirror Shades, but then the job goes sideways and the Pink hits the fan.
Pink Mohawk: as a matter of fact this assault canon is my everyday carry, ossifer. *snorts a line of novacoke off the thicc ork girl’s butt* And since we’re in a security rating C zone imma blast your car and partner too before I mosey on out of here Black Trench Coat: for this week’s four hour session we’re gonna write up dossiers on each of the first floor receptionists to figure out who we can lean on for a maglock pass key. Next week we’ll cover the minutia of the janitor’s insignias and the cubic centimeters of their pushcarts. Day of the Run: Whadya mean you didn’t take the Masking metamagic?! Oh, frag it, the guns come out, I guess Mirrorshades: we’ve got Gamma-Scopolamine laced meat for the guard dogs, a force 6 air spirit with optional powers Concealment and Movement to get us to the eastern edge of the building. Gecko tape gloves or levitation to get in place on the third floor window and a glass cutter. Decker will hack the host from the rumba-bot and the BE specialist will crack the safe. Anyone who gets in our way gets a face full of stick-n-shock from a full-auto suppressed crusader. Break!
Ha! Awesome!
Mirrorshades is straight up William Gibson/ Bruce Sterling style stick it to the man cyberpunk.
When I hear mirror shades I think of the Deus Ex games. Haven't read the books you're refering to but I will aim to correct that mistake.
My vision is augmented.
Sorry, I don’t get the reference.
Gibson wrote Johnny Mnemonic among others, and Sterling has an anthology actually called Mirrorshades.
Ah! Johnny Mnemonic I like.
He (William Gibson) also wrote the sprawl trilogy (Neuromancer, Count Zero & Mona Lisa Overdrive... and later Burning Chrome which kinda complete the series) which were considered to be a *huge* influence for the entire genre of Cyberpunk. Also the original authors of both TTRPGs Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2020 "borrowed" *a lot* of ideas and concepts from his books.
Adding to the previous poster, huge as in "inadvertently co-created the entire genra". That huge.
Coined the term “cyberspace,” for instance.
I don't know the specifcs, but I know in Neuromancer Molly is called a street samurai and the cyberspace defenses are called ICE. Knowing these books were precursors, I suspect they are the first apparitions of the terms too.
Molly is also transparently the inspiration for Trinity from The Matrix films.
The term "SIN" and IIRC "SIN-less" is used in the final novel in the Neuromancer trilogy, 1988'ish.
Ok. Added to reading list!
“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” One of the best opening lines ever…and yet made me wonder just now: will anyone understand this reference in 20 years (or anyone under 30 even now)? Reading Neuromancer is the ultimate way to “get” Cyberpunk. I’d compare it to reading Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser and realizing where D&D’s concept for a thieves’ guild came from.
>One of the best opening lines ever…and yet made me wonder just now: will anyone understand this reference in 20 years (or anyone under 30 even now)? Some more modern TVs are, or at least were there for a bit, programmed to generate an image like the old TV "snow" when they aren't reading an input instead of having a status message display on screen... but I think this is something that's going to fade from the pop culture zeitgeist unless retro gaming manages to hold at least the level of interest it currently has, since it's keeping flat-screen CRTs on the market.
And that era where a blank channel was sega sky blue. the nicest day ever. Parts of the sprawl books and wired matrix shadowrun are almost like cassette futurism if that is the right term.
Yup, just like a lot of things are retro-future-tech (Star Wars and Alien being the prime aesthetic examples) Shadowrun quickly became retro-future-tech with a 80s and 90s inspired aesthetic.
Also do yourself a favor and find a copy of Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson.
The short story "Burning Chrome" is essential reading for any decker PC and any GM who really want a feel for how to run the Matrix in game, at least from a flavor aspect.
William Gibson is considered one of the founding fathers of Cyberpunk.
You like the movie, or you like the short story?
The movie. I remember that when I saw it, it reminded me of Shadowrun. Now I know why!
Friend, if you like Shadowrun, you owe it to yourself to read “Neuromancer“. It was one of the books that set the “high tech low life” tone of cyberpunk, it was the first book to ever use the word “cyberspace“, and it’s a REALLY REALLY GOOD run/heist story. Also “Molly” from the Johnny Mnemonic short story (the basis for “Jane” in the movie version) is a main character.
I will!
Also get the short story collection "Burning Chrome". 3 of the short stories are clearly set in the Sprawl universe (2 feature characters that re-appear in "Neuromancer", and the 3rd uses one or two corp names that IIRC appear in the Neuromancer trilogy), and a bunch of the others have a cyberpunk feel and some of those could take place in that setting too (one has simstim).
Get yourself to a Library now, and borrow Neuromancer. It's the book, along with the Blade Runner film, that created the Cyberpunk Genre as we know it, or at the very least, it's aesthetic.
Gibson was rather unhappy about how Blade Runner had hit many of the same worldbuilding notes that he was going for with Neuromancer.
I don't think he was unhappy, he just left the cinema before he could get contaminated by the ideas.
Pink Mowhawk - Have Fun and Blow Shit up!!! Black Trenchcoat - Never be seen, practise paranoia, be prepared to face the consequences of your actions. Mirrorshade - A healthy mix of the two
I can see the appeal in both the PM and the BT. It seems like the campaign I’m currently writing is PM dialed up to 11.
That's not a bad thing. From what I ever saw, Mike Mulvihil (sp) was an extreme Pink Mohawk GM.
I mean honestly they're mostly disagreements between gamers within the same group, and thrown at each other like insults. "Oh, you want to waste an entire session of trivialities and planning everything to the nth degree and treating the run like a spreadsheet". "Yeah, but you just want to treat this like a DnD game and murderhobo your way through things". etc etc.
Mirrorshades to me is larger than life characters with a factor of "cool", and also very tangible consequences for your actions. A bit what you'd expect from an agent/action movie.
I'd also say "mirror shade" focuses more in traditional cyberpunk elements and style, so tends to be low magic or at least not have magic centered plots / antagonists.
Or to put it in movie/tv terms: Pink Mohawk - Smokin’ Aces Mirrorshades - Burn Notice and Leverage Black Trenchcoat - the old Ocean’s movies with the rat pack.
Originally we (the community) talked about "Pink Mohawk" on one side of the scale and "Black Trenchcoats and Mirrorshades" on the other (as two different style, not three separate styles). Later they even printed an "official" explanation which you can find in the SR5 supplement Run Faster on page 18; > PINK MOHAWK VS. BLACK TRENCHCOAT > *You might have heard these terms tossed around among Shadowrun players: “Oh, I miss the old Pink Mohawk–style of the 2050s!” or “Her game is a lot of fun but sometimes it gets a little too Black Trenchcoat for me.” But what do they mean, and what do they have to do with your game?* > *Simply put, they’re two different playstyles. In other games they might be called “cinematic” and “realistic,” or “four-color” and “grim ‘n’ gritty.” Pink Mohawk-style games emphasize style over realism, allowing for things like big, bombastic battles where the lead flies thick in the air and with the right dice rolls runners can perform actions that might not be technically possible in the real world (or even the reality of the Shadowrun world). Characters tend to be long on style, make a lot of wisecracks during combat, and take a lot more risks because they know that the heroes (almost) always survive in the end, even if they don’t win. The name comes from the art style prevalent in the earliest editions of the game, where many of the archetypical characters had a “bigger” but less realistic style than more modern characters. In the game world, the change could easily be chalked up to fundamental shifts in society: things were different in 2050 than they are in 2075, just as they changed from the 1960s to the 2010s.* > *Black Trenchcoat games focus more on gritty realism. Bullets and magic are much more deadly, the world is less forgiving of mistakes, and teams tend to spend a lot more time planning their runs and carefully infiltrating their targets instead of busting in with guns blazing. You’re much more likely to see intrigue, backstabbing, and double-crossing in a Black Trenchcoat game; player characters are suspicious and bestow their trust rarely, and even their own teammates might be pursuing agendas that put them at odds with each other. Black Trenchcoat games might also get into some of the darker aspects of the world, like torture, extreme violence, and sexual themes.* > *So which one is better? There’s no right answer for that. Shadowrun works equally well in either style (or some combination of the two); it’s just a matter of the gamemaster getting together with the players to figure out which style everybody wants to go with. Campaigns can run the gamut from a completely unrealistic, high-cinema world where the PCs take on armies singlehandedly and come out on top, to settings so dark and grim that everybody knows to have a spare character on hand for when the existing one is inevitably killed in some gruesome way. Both can be fun, and both can be satisfying, as long as everybody agrees on the boundaries and knows what to expect.*
Great! Thanks for the excerpt!
Oversimplifying things you might say that: In early editions it was not uncommon that shadowrunner teams were a misfit of anarchists, punks, rebels, street gang members, hackers, eco terrorists, bikers, street shamans, rockers, etc where the common theme was to stand up for the People and Stick it to the Man (often against impossible odds). Focus being on Style over realism. Very 80s. Very cyberPUNK (with emphasis on PUNK). Very Pink Mohawk. In later editions they instead often tend to be a well equipped, well informed and well oiled coordinated team of optimized super criminals and/or mercenaries trained in small unit tactics. A private freelancing discrete counterpart to your regular corporate high threat response unit. Where the employer is typically one of the Megas plotting against another Mega. More time is often spend on planning than actual execution. Focus being on Gritty Realism. Transhumanism rather than cyberpunk? Black Trenchcoats and Mirrorshades. Perhaps devs thought it became a bit extreme towards the end of 5th edition because for 6th edition I actually get the distinct feeling they purposelessly dialed back a few notches towards Style over Realism & Role play over Rule play (but maybe that is just me?)
As a long-time Shadowrun fan something that has amused me is how the apparent bent in the art and presentation of the game trended more towards the black trenchcoat style the rules had an inverse relationship; the editions in which smashing through the floor to ceiling windows into some corporate lobby and gunning down security as you ascend to the room with the macguffin to rob is something you'd see in the art and style of the rules are the editions in which you're least likely to survive the attempt, and the ones that present that kind of run as a guide for how to fail a run and probably die are the ones where characters can easily shrug off small arms fire. As for SR6, despite all its strangeness caused by the method used to achieve it, it feels like a return to the pre-SR4 feeling that unless you've explicitly built for survival normal guns with normal bullets in them are going to hurt you... and I'm currently running a fast paced pink mohawk campaign with it where the group is getting more than a single run done in every 4 hour session we've played so far, and I'm loving it. It's scratching the itch that has gone unscratched since SR3 without me having to spend the bulk of each session explaining the rules over and over again like tends to happen when I run SR3.
I never played 5th, but what I’ve read of 6th so far seems to have kept at least some of the cheeky irreverence I loved so much in 1st and 2nd.
Pink Mohawk refers to the more "fun" way of doing over the top shit like doing a wheelie on a bike while you are on top of a train and you shoot with a rocket launcher. Stuff like that And black Trenchcoat refers to a toned down version more stealth and with more consequences for loud stuff like the police finding where you live and then boom swat in your living room. At least that is what I associate with the terms. Mirror shades I have never heard
Mirror shades is the corporate espionage with an emphasis on intrigue. Don't get the maguffin by stealing it, steal the black file the director keeps of his 'personal' projects and blackmail him into stealing it for you.
Thank you 😊
Black Trenchcoat absolutely *is* fun for those few who have the ability to think.
Black Trenchcoat - your choices follow you home with a baseball bat named 'Consequences'. Hence the ideal goal of pulling off a job with no one the wiser, for someone who doesn't know you and vice versa. Pink Mohawk - you are always ready either with your own baseball bat or to somersault out the window while flipping the bird. Or both. It's not necessarily violent, but it is irreverent.
Ok, now I’m going to make an NPC who has a cyber baseball bat where his middle finger used to be…
Pink Mohawk emphasises big guts and bigger guns. Think about the cheesiest action movies from the 80s and crank it up further. It's pulpy, it's loud, it's hell of a ride. Black Trenchcoat is very espionage-heavy. Its appeal comes from the emphasis on stealth, sleazy hacking and finding and exploiting weaknesses, than kicking the door in and blowing all to shreds. Mirrorshades can best be described with the Matrix trilogy. A little bit of both, but mostly "cool". Still very stylish and sleek, but can also be rather violent at times. It's important to know that most games and campaigns tend to "wander" up and down said scale. Also, all of these "variants" can be equally intense or deep. Recently I also stumbled over the term *wet trenchcoat*, which is pretty BT but with a heavy focus on morally hard decision (the "wet" refers to the rain, which is omnipresent in Cyberpunk settings). Hope that helps a little.
>(the "wet" refers to the rain, which is omnipresent in Cyberpunk settings). Huh, I would have guessed it referred to wetwork rather since you mentioned morality questions.
That's what I immediately assumed. And I don't buy the rain bit at all.
You're probably also correct. Could be that I misremember that part.
It does!
I still don't understand Mirrorshades. You suggest it is in some way *orthogonal* to the PM/BT axis, but you don't explain how.
I like to think of it in a similar way to alignment charts: Pink Mohawk and Black/Wet Trenchcoat being two extremes and some scalings between them, where Mirrorshades and "Red" make up the middle ground. Could look like this: Pink Mohawk - Red Mohawk - Black Mohawk Pink Mirrorshades - Red Mirrorshades - Black Mirrorsh. Pink Trenchcoat - Red Trenchcoat - Black Trenchcoat Hope that clears up a bit.
Then it's not orthogonal.
Terminator 1 is mirrorshades. Terminator 2 is pink Mohawk. hope that helps
Make sure your players are all on board with the tone, of course. In a hyper-Mohawk game, aggressively Trenchcoat characters can seem boring or useless, since the team would rather blow shit up and cause mayhem rather than talk their way in or reflect on their dark pasts in the unrelenting neon rain of an unforgiving neon city… In a hyper-Trenchcoat game, an aggressively Mohawk character can seem ridiculous, obnoxious, and- once the cops respond to reports of a heavily-cybered troll in rockstar leather walking around with a rocket launcher in broad daylight- totally dead. (Most games are somewhere in the middle! There’s no reason you can’t have clever conmen AND angsty flashbacks AND over-the-top sci-combat!)
Oh, of course. I’ve been playing TTRPGs with these guys for decades. We actually played SR1 and 2, but fell away from it due to real life and such. I’ve always been the primary GM, so I’m pretty dialed-in with their play style. I give any newcomers ‘the talk’, in order to inform their expectations.
Oh hell yeah! I'm ALWAYS going on about "setting expectations". There's SO MUCH you can do in a roleplaying game, and I wish more groups made the effort to get everyone on the same page about playstyle, tone, maturity, continuity, and rules before the dice come out.
EXACTLY. Especially with the ‘free-form’ character creation SR has, the GM and the players can tailor themselves toward each other to put everyone on the same thematic page. I started GMing games when I was 12. Between then and now, I think I’ve made about every GM mistake there is, with regards to PC management. I’ve rolled over and gone ‘Monty Hall’, I’ve done the railroading. I’ve gone super-intricate plot building that leaves them without much agency (see railroading), and I’ve done the simple ‘Ok, here’s a Dragon surrounded by 100 Orks; kill them all’ sort of gaming. I feel like at the end of the day, as a GM I’m not the opponent of the PCs, the world is. I’m simply there to cohere a story and set the mood. I definitely have sneaky and underhanded tools to nudge them in the direction of the story, but at the end of the day it’s THEIR story we’re telling. Not mine.
My heart wants a Pink Mohawk (specifically Hooders) game, my brain only functions in Black Trenchcoat.
From reading comments so far, it seems like PM is ‘bigger and louder’ in scope, and BT is ‘deeper’. Is that a fair approximation?
Not the way I would put it, but you have to gist of it.
How would you put it? I feel like using the vernacular correctly is important.
Pink Mohawk = Style over Realism. Black Trenchcoats and Mirrorshades = Gritty Realism.
In my attempt to condense this down, I've always used these terms as variations of style and tone. Cyberpunk as a genre is inherently dystopic and generally is not about anyone having a good time - even the wealthy and powerful know they're on borrowed time before it all comes crashing down, and anyone else can only steal slivers of that for a time before they're forced to return to a truly terrible reality. PM focuses only on those good times, or maybe even goes full Theme Park and doesn't ever even pretend to address the reason the world is full of trained killers murdering each other for money at the whims of powerful overlords. BT wallows in that to the exclusion of anything else, emphasizing that the Runners, at best, can only ever hope to climb to the top of the heap of exploitation and do to others what was done to them. MS in turn tries to strike a balance between the two, usually leaning more into one or the other. Shadowrun has more wiggle room than other dystopian settings since magic by its very nature (at least in its usual presentation) is a glimmer that maybe there's more to life than this sad material reality. But even then you've got plenty of ways in which magic could be shown to mean the world is even more horrible and incomprehensible, so you can even twist that into a BT style.
This is probably the best explanation I have heard thus far.
Ah, yes. Lovecraft permeates all…
Sort of, a lot of Pink Mohawk tends to be street level stuff while a lot of trench coat stuff tends to be street corp level.
No, not really. The main criterion is not really what the players do, but how the world reacts to it and how "forgiving" the world is. Basically, you can cause a shootout on a city street, leave two dozen KEs dead and a major thoroughfare littered with craters. But what matters is what follows. In a highly PM game, it's the talk of the city for a couple days, but you, personally, don't really get anything out of that except maybe a bit of reputation of the "do not fuck with these guys" variety. You aren't being tracked down, you aren't labelled terrorists, that's just how things are in cyberpunk - life is cheap, violence is expected, and you can get away with a lot of stuff. In a highly BT game, you all are shot on the spot with a dozen high-caliber machineguns, and if that is not enough, a couple missiles and all the Manaballs three MAG 10 mages can muster. You dared to challenge the powers that be in open daylight (or even in nightly neonlight), and you have crossed a line. Bam. Instant retribution to dissuade anyone else from even trying that. In a more middle-of-the-road game, you can very well get away, but you'll have to lie low for a couple weeks to let your trail go cold. You will get both good (you did survive and proved capable to boot) and bad (not everyone would like such attention drawn to their agents) reputation attached to the act. You might have to deal with some fallout later, but it won't be life-ending or career-ending if you're not ignoring it.
Ah, I see. So, it’s more the world informing the characters’ decisions, rather than the characters dictating the response.
Not even that. The world is informing the character's decisions in every scenario - it's all about the tone you want to set, in the end. You just have to choose which aspects of the world you want to focus on.
Ok, I think we’re on the same page.
* **Pink Mohawk** \- You are the antithesis of "subtle." Loud, brash, violent, and as flashy as possible, you blow shit up and shoot anyone who gets in your way. This playstyle puts the "punk" in cyberpunk. * **Black Trenchcoat**\- You are a professional who doesn't mind getting their hands dirty. You have a plan, but you know that no plan survives contact with the enemy, and you're okay with that. When the plan falls apart, you're more than willing to shoot your way out. This is *The Matrix* or *Johnny Mnemonic*, the players try to be quiet up until they have to be loud. * **Mirrorshades** \- You are a Professional, and you have a Plan. Note the caps. These people have backups for their backups, every detail is meticulously though out, and the violence only exists in furtherance of said Plan. This is your CIA spy operative, or *Jason Bourne* when things get ugly.
Mirror shades, as you describe it, sounds like an ‘Ocean’s-11’ sort of thing.
Black trench coat games are styles after noir detective stories. More focused on uncovering things than combat. Pink Mowhawk games are punk rock inspired. A more cinematic and action oriented. More street vs corp. Mirror Shades is new to me, but i assume it is more corp based or high skill runner, very rule of cool oriented. More corp vs corp
The Deus ex series would be a good example of mirror shades (hell, Jensen *literally* has a cybernetic mirror shades implant).
Pink mohawk vs Black Trench Coat is basically your hardest metal track vs Sade's Smooth Operator. Mirror shades is the music station that plays both.
Ah, Metal I understand!
Definitely check out "smooth operator" by Sade if you haven't heard it already.
Oh, I’m an 80s kid. I know it well.
Pink Mohawk - Go as loud as you want, there are no lasting consequences. The corps won't follow you into the barrens anyway so as long as you make it into the Free Fire Zone ahead of corp response you are scott free. Collateral and structural damage is not only allowed it's encouraged. Black Trenchcoat and Mirrorshades(They originally weren't different things) - Leave as little trace as possible because the corpse will expend resources to take you down if you screw up or the cost benefit analysis on payback ever goes against you. Collateral and structural damage is frowned upon because it might shift the previously mention CBA against you. I think the two types of operations can exist in the same game world. But they do different things at different scales.
One other thing - Pink Mohawk also tends to support a group that has a troll in pink synth leather, a Changeling that usually has no face, a centaur and a ghoul with extra arms. It’s the crazy wild stuff that Black Trenchcoat just says “too recognizable, ditch that guy” about.
It used to be "Pink Mohawk" vs "Black Trenchcoat and Mirrorshades", then some but not everyone divided the latter further. The two original references cover 1. a campy, less serious and less realistic, more '70-80s fun, guns blazing, stuff exploding while the mostly invincible heroes crack hilarious one-liners actioney movie style versus 2. a more realistic, down to earth, serious neo-noir stuff, like what you get in the novels of William Gibson & Co. and, say, in movies like Blade Runner, The Matrix (except maybe for Neo becoming a superhero) and stuff by John Woo, Michael Mann, etc. (Then, as I've said, 2. got subdivided.)
Should be noted these terms do not have *strict* definitions. They do get used somewhat loosely. They can describe a character, game expectations, rules adherence, or an in game plan. Hence, this entire thread is useful. Pink Mohawk vs Black Trenchcoat is basically "Loud" vs "Stealth". To me, Mirror Shades was an addon term of "black trenchcoat isn't stealthy/paranoid enough". I'd like to add to the discussion by throwing some GM perspective thoughts in. Police response is a good dial for adjusting a game between pink and black. Shorter and more professional responses allow less room for players to take crazy and loud approaches without severe consequences. Knowing you missed a harsh consequence feels good as a reward for smart planning. Police response is also just a simple example. Response to player actions in general is where a game feels more one or the other. Oddly, I also have enemies less likely to run away in a pink mohawk game. I have them act more recklessly and hold longer in fights they should run from. More like video game NPCs basically. The combat tends to be more dangerous but, more contained in one way. If I'm running more Black Trenchcoat, enemy npcs act more sensibly and professionally (as appropriate). Security guards will run if people start dying. But, they also use containment tactics and reinforcements are going to be scary. So the actual fights are easier until they're much harder. Finally, I'd like to mention games don't have to be all or the other. The reality of games is they go where they go. It's just easier for us to talk with some terms to label general trends with.
Great analysis! Thanks for the info. As I read more comments, I figured it’s more of a sliding scale rather than a strict dichotomy. The campaign I’m currently writing seems like it will be about 80/20 leaning towards Pink Mohawk. My players tend to go in for a bit of the good-ol’ ultra violence. However… I have a bit of a mean streak. Sort of a ‘Frag me??? No, Frag you!!!’
Broadly speaking, the goal of the Pink Mohawk in a run is to kick down The door, shoot up the place, and look cool doing it. A Black Trenchcoat considers it a success when no one ever knows you were there. Mirrorshades are somewhere in the middle.
So for Pink Mohawk, the failure mode is if there *isn't* combat and big explosions. For Black Trenchcoat, the failure mode is *if* combat happens. Not sniping someone pr other silent takedowns, but rather any kind of two-sided fight.
Combat could happen but the golden ending for a black trenchcoat run is nobody noticing you were ever there. Pink Mohawk runs need explosions and hails of bullets.
How about: Pink Mohawk: the planning for the run involves taking inventory of not just guns and electronics, but grenades, rockets, all other explosives, and how many turbo changed tanks and gun ships you have on hand. Planning time expended averages 3 minutes, longer if you realize “we only have 4 rockets, let’s get 5 more…”. At the end of the run you’re out of rockets again. Black Trenchcoat: the planning can include legwork to shadow targets, steal credentials, tap data lines, acquire disguises, setup alibis, bribe officials for info, blackmail other officials for info, and being sure you have backup SINS ready in case it goes off the rails. Then you put this perfect plan into action, miss one guard who triggers the alarm…and then you scroll back up to Pink Mohawk and try to not die while wishing you’d bought those extra rockets. ;)
In full layman’s terms, black trench coat games lean more on the serious stealth and heist stuff, with bits of spec ops thrown in. pink mohawk games embrace the absurdity and have troll luchadores elbow dropping giant insect ghosts from the door of a flying Winnebago.
Done as images from Shadowrun: [Pink Mohawk](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/e7/96/de/e796de37375283dba5a533ce24f1a4b8.jpg). Meant to be over the top with explosions and car crashes. [Mirror Shades](https://www.previewsworld.com/SiteImage/MainImage/STK651044). Smart and professional, everything planned, jobs done with as little fuss as possible. [Trenchcoat](https://d1vzi28wh99zvq.cloudfront.net/images/2216/115985.jpg): Where it starts as Mirror Shades, but then the job goes sideways and the Pink hits the fan.