From: doug@abby.chem.ucla.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: ShadowRun HEROIC??? (was Re: Burn, GURPS...)
Date: 27 Jan 93 22:58:53 GMT
Reply-To: doug@abby.chem.ucla.edu
Organization: Department of Chemistry, UCLA

In article <1judavINN4u2@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>, cwagner@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Christian Wagner) writes:
>In article <wilder.727877466@mik.uky.edu> wilder@nx02.mik.uky.edu (jeff wilder) writes:
>>In <1jt6g1INNomv@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> cwagner@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Christian Wagner) writes:
>>|In article <2425@blue.cis.pitt.edu> seawasp@vm2.cis.pitt.edu (Sea Wasp) writes:
>I don't play SR anymore. I stopped because the game system bites and it tends 
>to attract old AD&D players. 

I don't play SR anymore either.  I stopped because it was too comic-bookish for
my tastes.  I found that it tended to attract YOUNG *D&D players, though...
like 12 years old, and TOTALLY munchkin.  There were also some things that
weren't taken into account in the system that should have been, IMHO, like a 6
target number and 7 target number being equivalent.

>Every time I've watched an SR game, either at the University Gaming Society,
>or at a convention, or any of a number of different places, the focus was
>always "let's see how many Lone Star we can waste" or "wow, lookit the big
>gun", or "let's see how much gear we can load up". The Fasa adventures I've
>read seem to re-enforce this. 
>
>I dunno, maybe net.gamers are a different breed. But I've never seen an SR game
>get played with any characterization beyond what you see in an X-Force comic or
>something. Excuse me for basing my opinions on personal experience.

This is USUALLY true.  I did manage to find myself in one good game, which was
fun for a while, where the characters were semi-legit... I was a Troll
ex-bouncer who started off working security for a high-threat news team. 
Our "cameraman" had a cybereye and a built-in transmitter... and a smartgun
link, which led to some amusing scenes where a crosshair and various other
smartgun data ended up making the local news when a technician switched
to him live without realizing that some editing was necessary....

It was fun for a while, but the feel just wasn't right.  The system led to some
outright silly results (though, as others have stated, that may have been
because SR II wasn't out yet), and just got in the way too many times.  What
action there was just didn't fit; it was too comic-bookish.  I had hoped for a
truer cyberpunk feel, and I didn't get it at all.  We were able to foil an
assassin, not because he was particularly incompetent, or because we were
particularly clever, but because it was just too damn hard, even with a sniper
rifle from an upper story of a building and a couple of goons near the target
to provide a distraction, to kill a person.  With a real set of mechanics the
target would have been pretty dead or at least badly wounded.

I also don't like the way magic is integrated, because it isn't, it's just
thrown in.  The magic system is innovative, and would be just great in the
standard pseudomedieval fantasy game, but I really didn't like the "magic and
technology simply don't mix.  Period," bit.  One of these days I'm going to try
to integrate them under GURPS and see what I can do.  Probably not a whole lot
better, but who knows?


-Doug Gibson
 doug@abby.chem.ucla.edu

Neither UCLA nor the National Science Foundation has a clue what I am doing.
They just pay me to do it.

"We have to tear you to shreds because we care." - EAC
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy