From: cwagner@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Christian Wagner)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Nature of CP and gaming universes (was Re: ShadowRun HEROIC???)
Date: 27 Jan 1993 20:49:39 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX
NNTP-Posting-Host: mickey.cc.utexas.edu

In article <1993Jan27.053954.6318@news.columbia.edu> jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (John H Kim) writes:
>	OK - you mentioned that you were still interested in the CP 
>discussion, even though we agreed to disagree on the SR universe. 
>cwagner@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Christian Wagner) writes:
>>>[cc. Johnny Mnemonic]
>>Johnny has no marketable skills; all he has is a chip in his head and a 
>>willingness to be used as walking storage media. That's not a 'shadowrunner'
>>in any sense of the (loosely defined) term.
>	True, but Molly and Case were. 

We weren't talking about Molly & Case. 

And Molly's not a 'shadowrunner', and neither is Case, in the sense we're 
talking about. (Or at least, the sense -I'm- talking about.) Neither Molly
nor Case take corporate clients; they're completely on the underside of 
society. In Gibson's universe, corporate enitites and naitons have their -own-
private muscle and brain, people they control absolutely and have complete 
loyalty from. Why would they use freelancers like Case & Molly?

"Shadowrunning" is a term used with legit people hiring people to do non-legit
things. The kinds of people who hire Molly and Case are non-legit to begin 
with, so I don't think "Shadowrunning" is a term that applies.

>>>told SRII is quite so. As far as being 'larger-than-life', I'm not sure I 
>>>know what you mean. Gibson's universe is filled with ultra-powerful people.
>>Case was not ultra-powerful; he was just a good decker, who (obviously) can
>>fuck up just as good as the rest of us. Molly may have been hell on wheels, 
>>but she was hardly superhuman; look what the Tessier-Ashpools did to her. 
>>"Ultra-powerful" is a relative term; compared to the world's heavy hitters, 
>>the main characters in _Neuromancer_ and company were small fry.
>	OK - so by 'ultra-powerful' you mean 'best in the world'. 

No, I mean "very very good". I'm talking about people like Hideo, (originally)
one of the enemy, and who (in game terms) would be an NPC.

I would 
>say that Molly and Case are quite powerful, but there are beings out there 
>who definitely go into levels of power which go far beyond human. 

Like Hideo. :>  

The idea is, that cyberpunk characters in general tend to be more powerful than
characters in other genre's, but when you realize that applies to the heavy 
hitters and villians as well..... 

"Cinematic" style, which is what we were talking about in the first place, has
characters be the top-of-the-ladder. Most CP characters don't even come -close-
to being the 'Best'.

 And
>>Molly, for the most part, got lucky, and had choice of playing field; it was
>>stated pretty explicetly that the assassin wouldn't have lost if they hadn't
>>been on the Killing Ground. "Killed by culture shock", or some such reference,
>>remember?
>	Yes, I remember - but it at least meant she was in his class. 

No, it means she used her contacts and picked the right place to meet the 
assassin; on her (in effect) home turf.

In a one-on-one, on the streets, Molly would have been coleslaw. She knew this,
and took the fight to somewhere she could win, a place where the assassin would
have so much more than her to cope with. 

>>It can't give soul or depth to a campaign; but it -can- have it's own sense
>>of depth and soul. Tell me the Amber background doesn't have an impressive 
>>depth and a soul all it's own?
>	Uh, no. If you include the characters of the amberites and the story, 
>then I would agree with you. But just the whole Pattern-Chaos-Shadow setup 
>strikes me as being confused and ill-defined, not particularly resonant. I 
>think that the Amber universe, were it to be presented without the books, 
>would strike me as stupid and shallow. 

<shrug> I haven't played Amber, or read the books, but what I have seen 
impressed me a lot. Mostly the characters, like you said....

>	However, I think a universe with depth is not neccessary or even 
>always desirable for a campaign with depth. A complete and sensible 
>universe is generally a good thing - but not always (Toon, Paranoia, 
>etc.)

What I got irked about was SR's extensive amount of sourse material, but lack
of depth. There's so much in, for example, Gibson's universe that we don't 
know anything about (does the United States even exist as a political enity?),
but it's got that depth anyway, because we know how things work and how people
think in this world. 

-That's- what's important in a world; knowing how it works under the surface,
and how it's people think, -not- how many bars are in the home city or having
a huge load of NPC's.

-- 
    "Well, do you ever get the feeling that the Story's too damn real
                        and in the present tense?"
               Christian Wagner - cwagner@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu 
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy