From: seawasp@vm2.cis.pitt.edu (Sea Wasp)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: ShadowRun HEROIC??? (was Re: Burn, GURPS...)
Date: 25 Jan 93 03:35:23 GMT
Organization: University of Pittsburgh
Originator: seawasp@unixd2.cis.pitt.edu

In article <1juu53INN99d@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> cwagner@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Christian Wagner) writes:
>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.

	Nothing wrong with an occasional Chuck Norris action film. However, 
I, like you, would find that kind of thing pretty stale. All I can say is that
OUR games don't go at all like that. So far we have had: 
	1) A beginning encounter to get us used to the system and combat
rules. That one was basically a D&Dish thing -- we were asked to find a
guy who'd gone crazy and wasted some people, and tried to find him in 
an area where there were a lot of psycho killings.
	(He turned out to be the guy I mentioned before, the one with the
automatic machine gun)
	2) About a month later, we were contacted by a rather innocent 
out-of-towner who was looking for people to solve a problem of a monster
who had emerged from a dig that the local construction crews were doing.
We eventually dealt with the thing (again, almost getting killed) and
because the town was money-poor, we settled for a good deal of land at
the place where the thing had emerged from (there were some kind of ruins
there... which we could tell were NOT in the "real world" before the
Awakening, so they were something we wanted to keep the TOWNSPEOPLE out
of; if there were more suspended creatures in there, no way could this
little town handle them. So we sort of got paid by trouble.
	3) Having handled those, we were cautiously contacted as possible
candidates for another "job" -- on the way to the meeting we almost got
wasted by a random encounter. Then we got hired as bodyguards at a party.
To make it short, we once more barely survived, but NOW we have enough
money to take it easy, pick and choose the kinds of jobs, and hope to
NEVER AGAIN have to go into a place where your gun skill is the only thing
that matters. Especially me (Enchanting Adept with no firearm talent,)
and the Rocker (with some theiving skills but loathes fighting).

>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. 

	Blame THAT one not on the system, nor on the players, but on the 
GM. That kind of thing is just flat out STUPID. 

	OUR GM emphasized:

	1) In a world with corporate magic and supertech, if you cause a 
big corp major problems, THEY WILL FIND YOU.

	2) Things may be bad, but there are lots of security corps and
a lot of efficient police. Violate the law and you will soon find yourself
on the wrong end of a lot of weapons.

	This isn't D&D, where a lot of lands are lawless and adventurers can
flee from country to country without much chance of efficient pursuit and 
punishment following. This is a rough country with effective, brutal law
and efficient ways of tracking down the guilty if the guilty are worth
enough.


                                 Sea Wasp
                                   /^\
                                   ;;;
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy