From: cwagner@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Christian Wagner)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: ShadowRun HEROIC??? (was Re: Burn, GURPS...)
Date: 24 Jan 1993 20:46:01 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX
NNTP-Posting-Host: mickey.cc.utexas.edu

In article <C1DEu9.7Kv@news.cso.uiuc.edu> dv52151@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (RedSwordTarga) writes:
>cwagner@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Christian Wagner) writes:
>><chuckles at the wonderful SR pseudo-slang> Tell me, Axly, would you play a 
>>character like Slick Henry (from _Mona Lisa Overdrive_) in SR? Someone with no
>>cybercrap, no ultra-skills, no real advantages to speak of except being an 
>>interesting character?
>No. I'm not interested in that sort of character. Heck, I play that type of
>person everyday, it's no real roleplaying stretch.

Heh. I guess that's where we differ. I -enjoy- playing interesting characters
who may be less than competant. And CP literature is -full- of 'em....

>>Wonder-schmucks like Cowboy and Molly have a place in cyberpunk, yes, but in 
>>SR, -everyone- is like Cowboy, or Molly, or Case. Due to the very nature of 
>>the game, you -can't- play an interesting character, because the game is 
>>basically one firefight after another, in search of a particular person/chip/
>>diskette/demonic artifact/bigger gun. 
>No, that's the very nature of your game. I think you are suffering from
>"I have to be weak to be interesting" syndrome. People with incredible
>abilities are just as human and just as interesting as people who have
>no abilities. *Shrug* What's the difference? They both have personalities,
>both have needs and desires, and both have things they are trying to 
>accomplish with their lives. 

Valid points. But, how many of us remember, for example, Molly's stories she
would tell case? For the most part, we tend to remember when Molly would rip 
people apart, and the fact that she had -really neat- cyberenhnacements. 

Weak != Interesting, and Powerful != Interesting. But in many cases, extra-
special abilities tend to overshadow the -character-. 

There was a line I heard once, can't remember who said it - "If they don't like
the characters, the audience won't care -how- many car chases you put in the 
film." That applies to gaming as well, in the sense that a character is defined
by much more than their abilities, and how big a gun they carry.

[Game system gripes and responses deleted]

Like I mentioned earlier, I'm not flaming SR's game system anymore.

>>I haven't heard of an SR campaign yet that isn't seriously combat-intensive, 
>>and which doesn't deal with that bastard plot device, having the characters get
>>hired to go blow away someone/steal something/extract someone/etc etc. It's 
>>barely an RPG in my book, closer to a &#@! tactical simulation. 
>Just curious, but how long have you been reading this newsgroup? There have
>been plenty of posts about people who don't play SRun the way it is normally
>written up. Hell yeah most people play SR as a gun combat game. Most people
>play ADD as a hack and slash, and almost every RPG out there is played
>by a lot of people who turn it into a "kill the bad guys, rescue the girl.."
>game. That doesn't mean the system is at fault, that just means that most
>of the people who play it think that's the only way it can be played. 

I think Fasa -is- at fault for the attitude and game play of most people. SR
is -written- as a gun-fury shootemup RPG, with pseudo-macho attitude dripping
out of every bodily orifice. Is it any wonder that it attracts ex-AD&D 
munchkins like a car crash attracts lawyers?

>I'll bet you there are just as many silly dungeon crawls with corps security
>as orks being played with GURPS Cyberpunk..well, I take that back, SRun
>sells a lot more, but you get the point.

<chuckles> Maybe so. But you can't get away with that in GURPS; gun combat is
naaaaaasty; I recommended each of my campaign's players have at least HT 12, 
just for surviveability's sake, even though we may have two fights an 
adventure. I've seen very few people use GURPS for heroic-style roleplaying,
because it doesn't cope that well with it. Unless you're -trying- get get silly
results (like we were in a 350-pt 'Modern Action Movie' game we did for a 
couple of weeks a while back), GURPS doesn't cope well with that style.

And this was my point in the first place; SR is a -heroic- game, with PC's 
doing cinematic things in cinematic situations. It may be well-roleplayed, it
may not be. But it's not the kind of style that fits the original literature.

-- 
    "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