Mr. Black's Guide to Creating Immersive Gaming - Part 2 Date Stamp Your Game

In this series we will be looking at methods to increase the immersion of your gaming universe. While these methods are intended for the Shadowrun milieu, most will work in other games or settings. 

Why increase immersion? Shadowrun is set on Earth, our Earth, just different. Creating that difference is key to making your game come alive. More than that, Shadowrun is a “city” game. Most of the time, your adventures will take place in cities, and usually the same city. And just like the song, cities never sleep. Because cities are full of people, and everyone is doing something, and something is always happening. We will be looking at easy ways to simulate that “hustle and bustle”. So let’s dig in and make your gameworld sing!

 A key method of creating immersive play is establishing a sense of the passage of time. Your players should feel the passing of the seasons and anticipate upcoming holidays and events. Mr. Black calls this “date stamping”. Date stamping does this through in-game events and conversations. Doing it in-game is part of the immersive effect. Doing it in a world so close to ours is what makes it work; your players don’t need an encyclopedic knowledge of your game world to understand its holidays and seasons.  They are our own. Date stamping also creates anticipation and anxiety in your players. Time and events will pass them by if they let it. They will need to jump into your game head first to keep up. 

So what is “date stamping”? Date stamping is using non-diegetic tools and diegetic methods to establish a sense of time and place, and the passage of time. A simple example is letting the players know the Seattle Sonic Booms made the playoffs. Then later inform them that the Sonic Booms made the Finals. This example increases immersion in several ways. First, as per Part 1, we are using Proper Nouns. The Seattle Sonic Booms play in Seattle, and are a basketball team. So we are establishing place, and outside “civilian” agencies (sports teams, sports leagues and sports fans, and all of their associated social media) a time of year (late spring, early summer) and talking points for NPC’s (“Did you see the game last night?”) And the time difference between the start of the Playoffs and the Finals is usually about 45-60 days, so time has passed. That is a lot of immersion for a couple of sentences. There are many ways and methods of effecting this, so let’s look at a few.

Let’s start with Tools - A key tool for a GM interested in date stamping is a calendar they can write in. Whether this is a hardcopy or an electronic version or even Office is all up to the GM and how he/she prefers to work. One with moon cycles is extra fierce. After all, there is only one new moon every 28 days. If the runners want an extra dark night for every run, they are restricting themselves. Electronic/digital/app based calendars can give you alerts and updates. You could spend an afternoon putting in the rest of the items we will be talking about into your calendar, and then let the calendar remind you of everything! Currently Mr. Black likes the look and layout of Google Calendar. It also adds holidays for most every nation on Earth! Perfect for keeping track of celebrations in, say, Chinatown or Little Italy, or any other expat community in your game.

The internet is a great tool as well. As your game is set in a city, use the city’s many real internet sites to help you. As an example, try this: The Seattle Japanese Garden. This famous garden, designed over 60 years ago, has its own website and calendar of events. So why not use that calendar? 

Pretty nice for a free resource.

It even has amazing graphics to borrow! If you and your players can ignore the year, you could use this as is. Feed your Crew upcoming details, and then stage an event during one of the Garden’s events. Like say, a Meet during the fundraiser? Can the Crew’s hacker get them into a sold out event? You can peruse websites for the many many real places in the city your game is set in, and use their calendars of events to inspire your runs, and date stamp your game. That is a powerful and free tool!

Another great tool is some sort of brief news report at the start of every session. If you use the same one every time it helps create immersion by being local and familiar. Think about those crazy morning radios DJ shows, the ones with news, sports, traffic and weather combined with flirty banter and top of the charts songs. Steal the format, throw in some crazy, and use it as a tool to give your players all the info that follows. “This is KFRK in the morning! KFRK, all frak all the time! Randi and Randy here, along with Dottie on weather, The Meister talking Sonic Boom’s Basketball, Chopper 5 on traffic, and our special guest, Jim the Singing Sasquatch. We will have the BodyLotto number in a moment, but first, here’s Dottie talking about this Spring storm coming in. Dottie?”

So now we have basketball season, a traffic report, a bit with a Sasquatch and an incoming storm, perfect for making the rigger’s job harder later tonight. Again, a lot of world building for a little investment.

Like ‘em? Use ‘em, and tell everyone
Mr. Black hooked you up.

Now that we have an idea of how to track time, and how to interject it into your game, let’s look at select dates to stamp into your players consciousness.

Holidays are perhaps one of the best ways of date stamping. Christmas, New Years Eve/Day, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving and (in the US) Independence Day all have powerful emotions tied to them. They also come with a powerful sense of time, weather and season attached to them. 2 are in the heart of winter. Easter literally represents Spring. July 4th is in the middle of Summer. And Halloween and Thanksgiving remind most of crisp fall days. Mentioning any of these holidays is sure to establish a sense of time and place in your players. Use them to your advantage. You don't want to pound your players over the head however. These holidays are so strong that a little goes a long way. You only need to note that Christmas decorations are going up or that fireworks stands are popping up for this to work. “Randi and Randy here wishing everyone a Happy Easter this weekend, and remember, loving moms put Choco-pops in those Easter Baskets. Choco-pops, the child’s choice in candies!”

Of course there are many, many other holidays you can use. Most big cities have a Chinatown (or its equivalents for Korea, Japan, Vietnam, etc.,) and thus Chinese/Lunar New Year/Spring Festival are sure to be big. UCAS day is another good holiday to track. Other classic holidays such as Labor Day, May Day, or the many Shadowrun holidays can also be tracked. Seattle's Awakened Day celebration (the second Monday in December) and the Night of Rage memorial holiday (February 7th) are two major new days to track. Each section of Seattle has its own special holiday it celebrates, giving you more ways to date stamp your game AND give you some great hooks for adventure.

Seasons are another great method to establish time and place. Spring brings rain and green grass and flowers. Summer gives us warm weather and clear nights. Fall is famous for the changing of leaves, and crisp nights. And winter brings snow, cold days and long nights. These can be used by you to show the passage of time, and challenge your players. Snow and rain can try the skills of your rigger, a seasonal change can push your face to find new items to bribe/cajole their contacts (Lunar New Year/Spring Festival requires celebrants to pay all debts in full. Gifts of cash are also traditional, something hard to acquire in a digital world. The U.S. Treasury makes special bills just for such gift giving - Prosperity Notes) Every change of the year can bring excitement and new challenges for your Crew (“Who scheduled this Run on the equinox? All my spirits have slipped their bonds!” “Stash it omae! Just look at the roads! With all these people celebrating, it is going to take 2 hours to get downtown. And I bet you nuyen to soy nuggets that there will be no parking. I’ll be driving the van in circles all night!”)

Weather! It affects everything and no one can do anything about it. But it also tells you players what time of year it is. Even just casual weather reports, say as part of their morning wake up-“Rise and shine! It is a beautiful 26 degrees outside, with clear skies and a 5 kilometer wind coming out of the northwest. Should keep the ash from Mount Ranier out of play today. Air quality is at Green today, so get out and enjoy one of Seattle's many parks!” See, there is a lot of info there. It is nice and warm, sounds like summer right? So with a little throw away line we are creating time, space, and environment. And lots of roleplaying possibilities. Compare that to a snow report, rain information, storm watches, etc. Think about a run with a storm warning in the morning, and a slowly ticking clock of reports until the skies open up and travel is impossible. Never underestimate weather and the reporting of it to immersing your players! “Dottie here, reminding all Seattleites to get indoors. This is a Class 3 storm hitting in just about an hour. We already have reports of waterspouts on Lake Washington, and 2 inches of rain have already hit downtown. All ferry services have been postponed, and the airports are closed as well, though the Seattle-LA monorail is still running as scheduled. Back to you Randy!”

Holidays, climate and the 4 seasons are not the only markers of time. We have artificial seasons as well. Sports are great for this. Spring training kicks off Baseball, football, hockey and soccer start in the fall. Just throwing in a line from a mook, “How about those Seahawks?” instantly establishes a time and place for your players and their characters. And if just a line does that, imagine following that up with months of trials and tribulations of said team. This also can give you mission hooks, options for settings and locations, and rewards that aren’t cash or karma. “Get the Run done by Friday, midnight, and I have tickets, Seahawks and Steelers, 50 yard line. Enough for the whole crew, this Sunday.” “You have playoff tickets for us?!?” “ I do, if you get the job done early...” There, some imaginary pieces of paper might just make your players push their characters a little more recklessly. And with all the many many sports going on, there is always something to use. Throw in a major boxing or MMA event in town, or the tracking of a legendary music act on tour, as the days get closer and closer to the act hitting town, puts a clock on your game that no calendar ever could. “Stephan here with the Weekend Culture Report. Everyone who is anyone will be at the King Dome Saturday night, as the Chondelles return for a sold out show. Bring your goggles, the VR display is to die for. And back to The Meister and baseball.”

There is more than just traditional sports to indulge in. Big conventions (Seattle’s annual E3 show-Electronic Entertainment Expo is a major event, and a huge incentive for runs. The Seattle Comic-Con is still going strong) and e-sports are gigantic. Huge VR displays are set up for team sports, snarling traffic. And the annual Emerald City Rumble Urban Golf Tournament is gigantic. Tens of thousands of players hitting VR golf balls throughout Seattle makes a mess of traffic, both on roads and on foot. And the Hard Targets Charity Zombie Gun ‘n’ Run every Halloween (think Pokémon Go mixed with a live action first person shooter, but with zombies!) is another massive event. Throw in concerts, trideo premieres, fashion shows, food events, local trid shows, 10k’s, car shows, museum showings and much much more. Use them as run locations, or meet locations, or challenges on runs (“Drek! Our exit plan takes us right through a food truck extravaganza! Ditch the van and mingle!”) Use them all to give your players a sense of time and place. Drop hints (“Your girl really wants tickets to the Tretronics 3 concert in 4 weeks.” “That concert is in 2 weeks and your smootchie is blowing up your commlink.” “Why the hell is the traffic so bad tonight?” “Tretronics 3 is playing tonight. One night only. Weren’t you supposed to take your side piece?” “Oh drek…”)

You know we had to use it.

So use the world your game is in, and show your players a complete world, of time and dates, passing before their eyes. Immerse them in a world that does not wait for them, that will pass them faster than a bullet from an Ares Predator. Confound them with the one thing there is never enough of: time.