From: cwagner@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Christian Wagner)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: ShadowRun HEROIC??? (was Re: Burn, GURPS...)
Date: 27 Jan 1993 04:37:56 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX
NNTP-Posting-Host: mickey.cc.utexas.edu

In article <1993Jan26.200547.4014@news.columbia.edu> jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (John H Kim) writes:
>cwagner@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Christian Wagner) writes:
>>Amber's a literary universe; rather different than one custom-built for a
>>particular gaming style. 
>	Amber as a universe and as a game-system is also built for a 
>particular gaming style: the competetive plotting, betrayals, etc. 
>	And regardless of whether you accept the latter, the point remains 
>the same. Amber GMs are running in an already-made universe, rather than 
>being creative and making their own - just like you concluded about 
>Shadowrun. 

I never said it was wrong to use a pre-made universe. I just think that pre-
made universe for ShadowRun happens to suck. 

>[cc. Johnny Mnemonic]
>>If little Johnny, the man with the silicon in his head, is a shadowrunner,
>>then I'm Rush Limbaugh. Johnny's a pawn, an incompetant with an enhancement
>>that lets him make money. No more.
>	Alright - let's ask all those SR's out there how many times their 
>characters were used as pawns. I would bet the answer is 'quite often'. 

Same in the GURPS CP game I run. The important word up there is 'incopetant'.

>I think you are interpreting 'shadowrunner' to be 'shadowrunner in a 
>munchkin game.' In the books and modules, SRers are constantly used as 
>tools - their definition is just that they do freelance, often illegal, 
>jobs for hire. Molly, Johnny, and many others fall into this category. 

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.

>	Uh - the original rules were not especially deadly, but I have been 
>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.
 
>The assassin in "JM" was able to dodge bullet and slice people into jullienne 
>fries, and Molly defeated him in melee. I can dig out my books for the names 
>of lots of other examples. 

The assassin dodged a shotgun blast from an untrained gunman who had the gun
in a duffel bag full of socks. Hell, you or I might be able to do that. 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?

>>Actually, it did. Am I the only person who remembers all the ads about the 
>>new 'cyberpunk meets magic' game?
>	Uh, that's what I meant when I said it was not intended to be 'pure' 
>cyberpunk. It shares many facets of CP stuff, but it is also different in 
>many ways (most notably in many of the themes - the native peoples, the 
>merging of ways, etc.). 

Exactly. But I keep seeing people who think SR=cyberpunk, and that ain't so.

>>It's completely lacking any soul (IMHO), and has all of the trappings of 
>>CP but none of the depth.
>	Oh, come one. You are judging CP literature by the best that is 
>out there, and you are judging Shadowrun by the worst munchkin campaigns. 
>There are plenty of lousy, shallow cyberpunk books out there - and plenty 
>of good SR campaigns.

Yes, there is lousy CP and good SR. But, IMHO, the standard SR background is
typical of the worst kinds of copycat cyberpunk literature. 
 
 If you think that any system can - by virtue of its 
>rules or its universe - give soul or depth to a campaign, then I must 
>strongly disagree. 

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?

>><nods> Actually, I'll be fair. -Most- campaigns, of whatever game, tend to be
>>unimpressive to outsiders. It's just that, in my experience, SR tends to 
>>attract the kind of gaming style/gamer that I stopped doing AD&D games at 
>>conventions in order to avoid.
>	I'd agree with that. Champions also seems to attract more than its 
>share of power-gamers, IMO. However, this does not mean that good games 
>cannot be run using SR or Champs, and it does not mean that they are bad 
>rules systems or universes. 

<shrug> I happen to think the SR universe is crap. You don't. We're not 
going to convice the other, and that's why I'm going to drop this discussion
very soon, because it's going absolutely -nowhere-.

>	I like the SR universe and hate the rules. I like the Champs rules 
>and hate the universe. However, it is easy to separate the rules and the 
>universe for both of these. 

Easy for Champs, maybe; but there's quite a bit in SR's rules that link in 
pretty tightly with the background.....


-- 
    "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