From: wilder@nx02.mik.uky.edu (jeff wilder)
Subject: Re: ShadowRun HEROIC??? (was Re: Burn, GURPS...)
Organization: University Of Kentucky, Dept. of Math Sciences
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 10:02:30 GMT

Well, line noise is giving me a real sweet ass-kicking this fine morning.
(Like I need it, after my friendly neighborhood Star Wars pinball game
just did the same to me.)  Apologies if you see this, in whole or in part,
twice.

In <1k2sv4INNh5u@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> cwagner@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Christian Wagner) writes:

|SR, on the other hand, has a built-in attitude, a built-in 'feel'. Every one
|of the adventures links in with the SR world in some way, and works off of 
|this selfsame theme. 

|The GURPS CP Adventures book is -not- hard-linked with anything in the GURPS
|CP book. 'DNA/DOA' and company -are- hard-linked to the base SR rules. Do you
|get what I'm trying to say here?

This might explain a lot.  "DNA/DOA" happens to be the absolute worst of
the SR adventures.  It's written by Dave Arneson, and absolutely holds on
to the typical "dungeon crawl/kill the monsters/loot the bodies" feel of
original D&D.  Basically, this package sucks.  If you're judging a "typical"
SR campaign by this adventure alone (or even in combination with only a
couple extras--this one has enough odor to contaminate them all), you're
making a huge mistake.

So be honest (and the temptation will be there to exaggerate, Chris): how
many of the SR adventures have you looked over?

IMO, some of the packaged adventures are worth the bucks, despite the
linear, "read it to em verbatim" style that I despise.  For me, a full-
time worker and student, the plot-lines, the NPCs, and the maps justify
the $8 a pop.

Some of the better ones...Mercurial; Dreamchippers; One Stage Before;
Harlequin; and Universal Brotherhood.  Even with the major surgery I
perform, however, these types of adventures are few and far between;
the vast majority of playing time deals with simple survival on the vicious
streets of Seattle.  Kinda like Case, in "Chiba City Blues."  Except,
of course, with magic. :-)

|No shit. But having a maximum arbitrary limit for -all- characters is a lousy
|way to enfore game balance. The semi-random system of CP2020 is better, but
|not much; at least it doesn't lead to standard 'packages' of cyberware, but it
|still leads to artificial roleplaying problems for people with lots of gear.

|In a system where cyberware costs money, and one has an upper limit, one can't
|create quite a lot of interesting character types. Full-convertion 'borgs, 
|something one finds in quite a bit of CP, are impossible under SR and just 
|barely possible under CP2020. People with lots of 'ware but who are terminally
|broke and under-equipped (Molly comes to mind) are difficult to make; one has
|to have cyberware be ridiculously cheap for beginning characters to have any.

Um, maybe I'm being a little demanding here, Chris, but just what kind of
cyberware system *do* you want to see?  As for your last compound statement:
people with lots of cyberware and little starting cash are more or less the
norm in SRII.  In the case of Samurai.  In fact, I think that's a good point
in SRIIs favor:  cyber is *expensive*, yet it's possible for characters to
start with it.  And cyberpsychosis, though a little simplistic, is a good
point in CP2020s favor: do you honestly want a system that allows characters
to cyber as much as their credit will allow, without some kind of impact
on their system?  Geez.  Think "FutureShock," and extrapolate it to actual
technological invasion of the body.  Pretty fucking scary, if you ask me.  I
have no problem believing that, at some point, not necessarily known to me,
I might just go wiggy under such circumstances.  But hey, if you think not...
 
--
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| Jeff W  uk06666@ukpr.uky.edu | Meddle not in the affairs of cats, for they |
| Wilder  & wilder@mik.uky.edu | are subtle, and will piss on your cyberdeck.|
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Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy