From: thornt_g@cs.uwa.oz.au (Sebastian Nobwit DeLaBler)
Subject: SRUNMagicalness(again)
Organization: Dept. Computer Science, University of Western Australia.
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 02:57:20 GMT

Thanks for all the response to my 'SRUN Magicalness' posting.
Any/all comments are appreciated except for one:

I DO NOT PLAY D&D!!

EVER!!

(pause to think about playing D&D....)
BLEEEERRRRR!!!!!!!! (the thought made me sick)

I am demonstrating great restraint (for me) by resisting the urge
to write a huge article on how silly D&D is (apart from the fact
that doing so would cause unnecessary net-tension).
I actually don't understand why so many people thought I 'played
too much D&D'. Hmm. Interesting. 

Back to the issue, there are a few things to clear up:

Yes it's true, I do NOT have the grimoire, or any other shadowrun
supplement for that matter. I believe a game should stand on it's 
own, without millions of extra books (or millions of extra $$$).
So if there is anything in the grimoire that invalidates some
of my comments, I apologise. My perspective was from the shadowrun
rulebook only.

I do like shadowrun, no I do! It's just that the magic system 
doesn't quite appeal to me as it is. Don't get me wrong, I would
use the shadowrun magic system until the world's end, rather than
use D&D's magic system, and I would do it with a smile on my face.
(By the way, does D&D HAVE a magic system?) 

My comments were mainly based on my experiences so far:
All player mages that have been in my parties have been absolute
butt-kickers in terms of spell effectiveness. SO MANY times have
we (the non-magical players) set up a great ambush/assault, 
planned everything down to the last detail, got all the right 
equipment, and then BANG, the mage casts a sleep spell. Ah well,
time to go home. There are certain catch-phrases that have formed
like: 'the pool! use the pool!', and 'Forget that, just get the
mage to sleep 'em.'. One time, our party was in this really heavy
security building, and things were getting too much, so we drove
away, and the mage just 'urban renewal'-ed the place a couple
of times! (If urban renewal is in the grimoire, then don't blame
me, the player created his character from it, but I've never
read the thing). 

It's not that I mind magical people doing stuff, not at all! 
But they do it so EASILY! The spell always works, (yes I know
there's drain) and someone goes down. Using the shadowrun rules
only, there's also no ingredients, gestures, or time required
to cast these damn powerful spells.  It's also the fact that 
they can do basically anything! The mage usually has:
- some kind of armour spell lock thingy, making him tough.
- some king of enhanced reflexes lock thingy, making him fast.
- some kind of elemental thingy making him even more powerful.
- some kind of combat specialisation thingy making his combat
  spells even better.
- some kind of mega-blast fireball/sleep against which there is
  (or seems to be) very little resistance.
- some kind of healing spells.
- some kind of masking spells. 
What else do you need to be able to do? The mage can do it all.

Then there's all this talk about initiates getting more magic,
etc. etc. etc. (and one of our mages IS one) I think it's
too much. Magic is power, but is it omnipotent?

By the way, who ever heard of a grenade being anything even
remotely close to a fireball? 'Scratch one mage' yeah SURE. 

Remember, these are only my opinions/observations being
presented here, I speak for no-one else, so don't go insulting
me by saying I play D&D :)


My Email address: thornt_g@kultarr.cs.uwa.edu.au

Newsgroups: rec.games.frp