Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 22:51:26 -0400 
From: Brian Bankler <bb2u+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Shadowrun and Death 


	Having just glanced at Curt R Lindmark's response, I must
state one obvious fact...

	You are dead when the GM says you are.

	It doesn't take 15(D+2)D2 or whatever.  It shouldn't.  There are
very simple fixes to the game, either old or new (I don't have SRII, I
refuse to spend the money, I've spent the money on SRI and, after
learning the very simple rule above, and the other forms, which
are all basically corollaries of "The GM intereprets the rules", I have
had working campaigns).

	Fix #1)  Remove Heal spells.  I used to say Don't allow healing
if the victim has cyber, but that just made Phys. Adepts the character
of choice.  No healing via magic is very fair to all involved.  Very deadly.
Currently, I'm running a campaign where the mage has no healing.  
Characters don't worry about death.  They worry that they might
survive and have to sell their souls to pay off their medical bills.

	Fix #2)  If the GM says your dead, you are dead.  Use your
common sense.  People can survive bullet wounds today.  Assuming
you don't let them go into shock and don't let them loose blood, people
can take a few shots.  It is the time they lie on the ground, waiting
for an ambulance, that kills them in the most cases.  If your mage
has to wait a few minutes to heal someone (for example, he took
a moderate drain and knows that he'll never get the spell to go
off until he rests) then make the target higher.  And remember the
"survival" roll where the target is number of minutes.  This is a
good rule, although it causes dice to be rolled.  It means you can't
wait to heal wounds.  And don't let people think, Oh, it's okay if
he hovers on the brink of death for 10 minutes.  Maybe he had brain
damage?

	Fix #3)  Shoot the mage first.  Quite logical.  If I am on another
team, I do not want people to die, then get raised and come back with
blood in their eyes.  It only stands to reason I'll kill the mages first.  
Not to mention the fact that it makes spells _real_ easy to cast, then.

	Fix #4)  Knock them out.  Kill them later.  One minute, bang
you are fighting when a gas grenade (much easier to see on the streets
than a vindicator XSuperMagnificientGyroGun) goes off.  If you fall
unconscious, that's bad.  If the entire team does, then your last memory
of life is likely to be a mutated fish swimming through the grimy Puget
Sound.

	I don't always run high-death campaigns.  But, if I think that
death should be a part of a campaign (as the original poster certainly
must have, unless the question was rhetorical) then it is easy enough
to do without resorting to escalation.  I suggest you try the following
in your campaign.  Have someone who is known to be a fair to OK
shot pull a pistol (firepower ammo, shall we say, 6M2 for you 
SRunners) and fire a few shots one someone (not a party, just someone).
If that person ducks for cover first, then pulls out a gun and shoots (or
casts a spell, or closes to range) then your campaign has a hope.
	If he just stands there and blows the person away, then
either the character has no sense of danger and is being role-played
well, does have a sense of danger and is being role-played poorly,
or just doesn't have a sense that he is in danger.

	[If you like esc, then feel free to go with it.  I must admit that
FASA has been pushing the up the power level feel of the game for
quite a while.  I've even gone for a high-power plot or two.  But
the characters always start small....]

				Brian

	Scene from last sunday.  Phantom has a gun (pistol) pointed at
his face.

	Phantom -- "Eep."

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