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 20:28:19 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX
NNTP-Posting-Host: mickey.cc.utexas.edu

In article <2439@blue.cis.pitt.edu> seawasp@vm2.cis.pitt.edu (Sea Wasp) writes:
>In article <1jt6g1INNomv@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> cwagner@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Christian Wagner) writes:
>>Yeah. All the PC's tend to be mega-killing-machines (or mega-decking-machines,
>>or mega-driving-machines, or mega-spellcasting-machines). 
>	Perhaps all the players tend to be power-crazed munchkins? There
>isn't ONE PC in our group which meets those specs. We have an information
 [Interesting party desc deleted]
>>Cyberpunk isn't about being heroic. It's not about being able to toast anything
>>in existance with your Assault Cannon/Flatline Program/CyberVehicle/KillSpells,
>>it's not about combat, it's about -people-. In ShadowRun, the people get left
>>behind under all the hardware.
>	Sounds like you're blaming the players, not the game. ANY CP based game
>has the potential for that kind of abuse, and I've seen the same thing in
>those, or in space games, and so on and so forth...

Maybe so, but, in my experience, SR tends to attract ex-AD&D munchkins, who 
enjoy being able to do things like kill dragons with machine guns, or shrug off
machine gun bullets with a magic spell. 

I don't see the same kind of problem with CP2020 or GURPS CP. 

[More system debate deleted]
Like I've said, I'm not going to flame over SR's system anymore, having not
messed with SRII, and realized that what I consider to be problems may not be
problems to others.

>>And this brings up my other gripe about Shadowrun; it's almost all $#@! combat
>>or military-style crap. Extractions, assaults, thefts, it's all violent and
>>it gets -OLD- fast. The character creation system is munchkin in the -extreme-,
>>and it's flat-out impossible to integrate some character types and 
>>personalities into an SR campaign, because the whole thing's based around 
>>military-style operations. It's dungeon-crawling, except the dungeons are above
>	Once more, this isn't the game. It's the players. MILITARY operations?
>Our group avoids them like the plague. We went up against ONE, repeat, ONE,
>guy with an automatic medium machine gun. He killed one of us (revival by
>DocWagon, expensive as hell), disabled the rest (one of us simultaneously
>killing him).

When I mean 'military', I'm talking about the 'ShadowRun' concept, where a 
buncha skulky types go somewhere and steal/modify/kidnapp/kill/destroy
something or someone. Usually with a lot of stuff that looks and feels like 
it's right out of a Chuck Norris action film. All of the Fasa modules have 
this kind of plotline/attitude, and so do most of the SR gamers I've met.

>	We're much more interested in characters than in combat. My characters
[Rational rationales for avoiding combat deleted]

These are exactly what I've seen my players do in the GURPS CP game I run, yet
I've never seen that kind of attitude in an SR game. All the SR games I've seen
tend to be played (and run by the GM) as AD&D with guns. 

I don't know, maybe it's net.gamers, versus the rest of the gaming community,
but I've never played in or watched an SR game that got beyond the 'let's see
how many corp security types we can waste with the minigun'-stage. 

-- 
    "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