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Message no. 1
From: Kristling <kristling@*******.CROSSWINDS.NET>
Subject: Chessmen
Date: Sun, 29 Mar 1998 04:34:27 -0500
Okay, a little bit of plotting here:

Kristling is planned to be presued by 32 "players" called the chess men.

They basically are a bunch of shadowfolk, ex- soldiers, neo- anarhists,
ecetra. They chose a runner every "match". One side, determined randomly
(this match it's the Black side) hunts the chosen runner (in this case,
Kristling) and the other (White) tries to protect him. After the target
is dead or two months, a winner is declared.

They bombed his "offices" outside of Toronto, killing everyone except
(he doesn't know it yet) his brother in law and his secratary. King's
Bishop's Pawn, who preformed the deed, was sacrificed (killed) for
broaching the rules and killing without results (if Kristling had died,
the errant pawn'd still be alive and kickin'). Kristling was, in fact,
caught in the blast radius, resulting in his needing cyber replacements
for his eyes. He returned to Seattle. He only knows he is being presued
by somebody and all his friends.
--
"First, they came for the labor unions but I wasn't a labor unionist,
so I didn't speak up. Then they came for the Communists but I wasn't
a Communist, so I didn't speak up. Then they came for the Jews but I
wasn't a Jew, so I didn't speak up. Then they came for the Catholics
but I wasn't a Catholic, so I didn't speak up. Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak up." - Pastor Martin Niemoller
"What tragedy is war. It yanks out both mankinds's bloodlust and their
great courage and nobelity. Geez, that sucks." -Me to my dad after he
commented about the prevelence of war lately.
--Your friendly web crawlin' cyber Raven shaman, nee Wannabe comic book
writer, Daniel Sauve
AKA KRISTLING RAVENWING
Message no. 2
From: Jeffrey Mach <mach@****.CALTECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Chessmen
Date: Sun, 29 Mar 1998 02:19:45 -0800
On Sun, 29 Mar 1998, Kristling wrote:

> Okay, a little bit of plotting here:
>
> Kristling is planned to be presued by 32 "players" called the chess men.
>
> They basically are a bunch of shadowfolk, ex- soldiers, neo- anarhists,
> ecetra. They chose a runner every "match". One side, determined randomly
> (this match it's the Black side) hunts the chosen runner (in this case,
> Kristling) and the other (White) tries to protect him. After the target
> is dead or two months, a winner is declared.

It is a bit of an extreme way for a group of runners to keep on their
respective toes, but theoretically possible. Especially if there are rich
and powerful patrons for the event who get a bizarre thrill out of the
game. A priori I have no real problem with the plot concept, other than
the duration. Two months seems a bit long unless you want the protector
team to nab Kristling and put him in a deep, dark, secret, and well
defended hole for those two months. You also may want to consider the
full bounds of the "rules' for the game. If this really is a "game" then
what is the prize, and what would the sides be willing to do? You already
say that they will want to kill one for breaking the rules, but would they
actively try to kill each other during the game? These don't have to be
answered, but they are food for thought.

One thing though, aren't there at least one group who are already using
chess-piece names? IIRC, they were involved in the IF1 storyline.

ACCESSING....

http://www.itribe.net/shadowrun/cast-db/

<<ping>>

Yes, it seems that Steven Ratkovich has registered Black King and the
Black Pawns. Somebody else has a Black Knight, unrelated (wonder if he
takes well to dismemberment). IIRC, the King and Pawns all worked for
Black Queen (as in Bug queen) and while they were unsuccessful against IF1
for the most part, they are still out and about.

If Steven (& IF1) has no problems, then I can see running with it, since
chessmen is a relatively common concept.. On the other hand, it can be
done to death. One possible alternative is to cut your numbers to 26 (13
per) and have them use the deck of cards motiff (Hearts vs. Spades: Queen
of Spades, Jack of Hearts, Ace of Spades etc.). This is problematic,
though, because you already used them. On the other hand, you forgot to
give them T/D stamps (necessary even for Internal messages, at which point
altering them becomes pointless unless you are crazy like Karlsbrun), so
maybe a little retconning is in order anyway.

> They bombed his "offices" outside of Toronto, killing everyone except
> (he doesn't know it yet) his brother in law and his secratary. King's
> Bishop's Pawn, who preformed the deed, was sacrificed (killed) for
> broaching the rules and killing without results (if Kristling had died,
> the errant pawn'd still be alive and kickin'). Kristling was, in fact,
> caught in the blast radius, resulting in his needing cyber replacements
> for his eyes. He returned to Seattle. He only knows he is being presued
> by somebody and all his friends.

First his sister is nabbed and now he's being hunted for no other reason
than he is a handy target. This poor guy's a bad-karma sink.... As a
note, though, if your eyes are damaged in an explosion, then you don't
_need_ cyber replacements. It's just that most mundanes choose them
because of their utility over cloned/vat grown eyes. But the latter
option is infinitely more essence friendly.

--My two yen

Jeff
Message no. 3
From: Avenger <Avenger@*******.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Chessmen
Date: Sun, 29 Mar 1998 14:34:10 +0100
In article <351E15A2.54DBFAC2@*******.crosswinds.net>, Kristling
<kristling@*******.CROSSWINDS.NET> waffled & burbled about Chessmen
>Okay, a little bit of plotting here:
>
>Kristling is planned to be presued by 32 "players" called the chess men.

You'll need to call them something else I'm afraid. The "Chess Men" per
se were introduced by Sascha Pabst, Querty, myself and Bull about two
years ago. There's quite extensive postings from them in the older
logs. Sorry and all that but The Chess Men already exist on Stk,
they've just been rather quiet of late.


--
Avenger
Message no. 4
From: Jaimie Nicholson <jaimie.nicholson@********.OTAGO.AC.NZ>
Subject: Re: Chessmen
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 12:58:51 +1200
>>Kristling is planned to be presued by 32 "players" called the chess men.
>
>You'll need to call them something else I'm afraid. The "Chess Men" per
>se were introduced by Sascha Pabst, Querty, myself and Bull about two
>years ago. There's quite extensive postings from them in the older
>logs. Sorry and all that but The Chess Men already exist on Stk,
>they've just been rather quiet of late.

It wouldn't make much sense to change it now, and besides, why can't two
org's, by coincedence, have the same name? It could happen in real life. I
wouldn't be surprised, for another example, if there was more than one
bunch of runners/whatever who name themselves after the four horsemen.

PLAYTHING OF A CRUEL GOD
JAIMIE NICHOLSON
Message no. 5
From: "Michael R. Goldberg" <mrgoldbe@**.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: Chessmen
Date: Sun, 29 Mar 1998 23:38:34 -0600
>
>>>Kristling is planned to be presued by 32 "players" called the chess
>>>men.
>>
>>You'll need to call them something else I'm afraid. The "Chess Men"
>>per se were introduced by Sascha Pabst, Querty, myself and Bull about
>>two years ago. There's quite extensive postings from them in the
>>older logs. Sorry and all that but The Chess Men already exist on
>>Stk, they've just been rather quiet of late.
>
>It wouldn't make much sense to change it now, and besides, why can't
>two org's, by coincedence, have the same name? It could happen in real
>life. I wouldn't be surprised, for another example, if there was more
>than one bunch of runners/whatever who name themselves after the four
>horsemen.

Hey now! 8*P I objected when Black Knight was used then (and
actually, I already commented on it yesterday to Daniel), and I would
probably object to using the names War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death
by others. There would have to be some distinction in the names to
indicate differences -- e-mail address of the different authors would
confuse people who are just reading quickly [especially since on my
history of being on the list, I have posted from three different
accounts]. I've not been using Famine's original running directly on a
post because it would confuse her with all the stuff that Paul has
going on with the Farmer junk.

There are otherways to have a reference to the 4 horsemen without
duplicating the names I have already picked.

(And yes, one of the days, I plan to bombard the cast listing with a
whole bunch of characters. If only I had spare time.)

Let me say this, that yes, in the Shadowrun world there are probably
multiple Midnight's out there, and multiple horsemen group's out there,
but on Shadowtk it is easier to keep distinctions if the names aren't
recycled, or if they are to have something different about them. For
instance:

Raven the Mage
Raven the Decker
etc.

(As I recall, Raven was incredibly popular at one point, and Midnight
was too. For Midnight, we just had a different spelling to keep the
two separate. I didn't know it at the time, but it became more
important when I decided to bring Midnight back to the list.)

Later,
Mike
Message no. 6
From: Avenger <Avenger@*******.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Chessmen
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 21:07:58 +0100
In article <v01540b04b14543f348da@[139.80.126.17]>, Jaimie Nicholson
<jaimie.nicholson@********.OTAGO.AC.NZ> waffled & burbled about Chessmen
>>>Kristling is planned to be presued by 32 "players" called the chess
men.

>>logs. Sorry and all that but The Chess Men already exist on Stk,
>>they've just been rather quiet of late.
>
>It wouldn't make much sense to change it now, and besides, why can't two
>org's, by coincedence, have the same name? It could happen in real life. I
>wouldn't be surprised, for another example, if there was more than one
>bunch of runners/whatever who name themselves after the four horsemen.

I have no problem that two organisations/groups/teams could have the
same name in real life. The main problem, and this has come up before
on the list with "similar names", is that the group Kristling wants to
use is 32 men. The Chess Men we used were Bug based, using humans only
when they couldn't operate themselves. The problem we had at the time
was over one of the lieutenants having Black Knight as his handle. We
did consider changing that to Black Rook, but I think it was allowed to
slide at the time as they'd be internal posts primarily.

Having a group like the Chess Men surface in the northern UCAS, would
logically, require investigation from four other teams, teams that would
not be sympathetic to their cause. <g>


For others reading the logs, it might prove a little confusing to have
the Chess Men suddenly transform from a vindictive and violent bunch of
bugs with human serfs to a 32 man Mercenary team.


If it goes ahead, there's little I or others could do about it, though I
am doubtful that the two groups could be seperated so easily as to just
claim "it's two groups". The Chess Men have been quite for a while,
though they were due to be resurrected later this year through an
associated nest by myself and Paul, with possible involvement from
Sascha.


I'd suggest, that just for tk (as opposed to RL) it would be awkward to
have two groups with the same name, just as it would to have two
characters with the same name.


Just my thoughts.

--
Avenger
Message no. 7
From: Jaimie Nicholson <jaimie.nicholson@********.OTAGO.AC.NZ>
Subject: Re: Chessmen
Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 13:28:40 +1200
>>It wouldn't make much sense to change it now, and besides, why can't
>>two org's, by coincedence, have the same name? It could happen in real
>>life. I wouldn't be surprised, for another example, if there was more
>>than one bunch of runners/whatever who name themselves after the four
>>horsemen.
>
>Hey now! 8*P

:P :b :P :b :P :b

>Let me say this, that yes, in the Shadowrun world there are probably
>multiple Midnight's out there, and multiple horsemen group's out there,
>but on Shadowtk it is easier to keep distinctions if the names aren't
>recycled, or if they are to have something different about them.

I think occasional confusion of this sort would add authenticity. But I see
how it could mess up people's plots, and also could be seen as stepping on
toes. Plus it says not to in the FAQ, come to think of it.

PLAYTHING OF A CRUEL GOD
JAIMIE NICHOLSON

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Chessmen, you may also be interested in:

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