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Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: "Thomas W. Craig" <Craigtw1@***.COM>
Subject: My take on things
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 01:49:09 -0400
Ok, here in the last few weeks several people have been saying "I wish Vinnie
was back. He would improve things." Well, I doubt he would make any
difference; because what I see is a group of people more interested in the
rules, rather than ROLE-PLAYING. ShadowTK is BASED off of Shadowrun, and is
NOT a Shadowrun campaign. TK came into existance to allow each and every one
of us to ROLE-PLAY our characters, not to have our ROLE-PLAYING stifled by
the RULES. Now a part of the reasoning behind this occurred in November of
last year, and will be used as an example.

Now, as I remember it, I returned to the list in the middle of someone
bringing in Burning Bright. I have THREE characters(Buzz, Gunny, and
Firefox) that were affected by it, as they were from Chicago. I tried to
ROLE-PLAY them according to their histories, and NEARLY EVERYONE(including
Daniel, and Brian) told me that I COULDN'T get them in to Chicago, BECAUSE
that was a part of the RULE set up by everyone. That was a major travesty,
because the rules prevented someone (myself) from ROLE-PLAYING their
characters.

I believe there should only be a few rules:
1) No major/lasting changes in Corporate history/structure. ie. only the
Big 8 being AAA Corps.

2) No major/lasting changes in histories and political structures of
countries. ie no one person ruling the world, ok with all of you?

3) No killing off of major characters, sorry, but no pushing Harlequin off a
cliff!

4) If all of the above are met and there is a conflict between two or more
people, they work it out betwixt them.


If anything I've said has offended anyoine, well, I'm sorry, but I am a very
blunt person, and I DO NOT pull any punches when fighting for my beliefs.
Tom
Message no. 2
From: SCN User <bd042@***.ORG>
Subject: Re: My take on things
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 00:02:59 -0700
Uh, I don't think pushing Harlequin off a cliff would do much more
than annoy him, TC.
--Moonwalker
Message no. 3
From: "Thomas W. Craig" <Craigtw1@***.COM>
Subject: Re: My take on things
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 09:45:51 -0400
Uh...are you sure? I'd think it would depend on the height...:)
Tom
Message no. 4
From: "Mark L. Neidengard" <mneideng@****.CALTECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: My take on things
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 13:16:24 -0700
I think it's clear that plot-d serves a definite purpose and that it really
deserves to make the transition to itribe. As follows:

According to Thomas W. Craig:
>
> Ok, here in the last few weeks several people have been saying "I wish Vinnie
> was back. He would improve things." Well, I doubt he would make any
> difference; because what I see is a group of people more interested in the
> rules, rather than ROLE-PLAYING. ShadowTK is BASED off of Shadowrun, and is
> NOT a Shadowrun campaign. TK came into existance to allow each and every one
> of us to ROLE-PLAY our characters, not to have our ROLE-PLAYING stifled by
> the RULES. Now a part of the reasoning behind this occurred in November of
> last year, and will be used as an example.

I believe I'm one of the people who has harped on some rules on occasion. My
primary concern is this: because ShadowTK draws in people from widely varying
role-playing backgrounds, knowing the groundrules on how the world works is
crucial to ensuring that ShadowTK is coherent. The incident I'm thinking of,
namely the stuff with Disbeliever, may not even be central to any of the
plots being transacted, but once you establish precedent and allow the first
being of this kind in the door, others may follow. In other words,
role-playing is the ultimate goal, but to _facilitate_ role-playing and to
prevent conflicts between the players over what is "allowable", we need some
sort of stadards to work from, i.e. the FASA canon. We need to be sure we
are talking about the same things in order for us to tell part of each other's
stories.

If my rules-layering was somewhat strident, I suppose it was because the
character was posited and then explained after the fact. If someone had asked
"Does anyone have problems if I introduce X?" then the whole issue can be
discussed in a (hopefully) rational manner. But once things are already
rolling, they can be a lot more difficult to handle objectively. The current
plot involving Maxim seeking nuclear arms is an example of a very promising
concept that is unlikely to have suffered from at least an initial review;
kudos to its author for his recent message. =) In passing I would say that
whoever M. Johnson knows inside Ares must be in an unbelievably good position,
since nobody can afford to use anything but the highest security for nuclear
storage. But, we assume that Ares got caught with its pants down, and go from
there =) Just like we assume that Disbeliever is either a complete phony, or
else has some good reason for his condition. What constitutes a good reason
is why we have this group.
--
/!\/!ark /!\!eidengard, CS Major, VLSI. http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/~mneideng
"Fairy of sleep, controller of illusions" Operator/Jack-of-all-Trades, CACR
"Control the person for my own purpose." "Don't mess with the Dark
Elves!"
-Pirotess, _Record_of_Lodoss_War_ Shadowrunner and Anime Addict
Message no. 5
From: "Thomas W. Craig" <Craigtw1@***.COM>
Subject: Re: My take on things
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 18:06:25 -0400
Mark, I suggest you look up the logs from the Omega Island plot. Then,
compare them to what is now going on. I don't know if there were/are any
Plot-D logs, but if there are any from 1993(specifically the fall of that
year), compare them to what went on in Nov. 1994, as it was that specific
incident I was refering to, where a rule interfered with my role-playing
Buzz, Gunny, and Firefox, as well as Shadow, Dragon, Bloodtooth, and Silent
Running.
Tom
Message no. 6
From: NIGHTFOX <DJWA@******.UCC.NAU.EDU>
Subject: Re: My take on things
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 16:41:52 -0700
>Mark, I suggest you look up the logs from the Omega Island plot. Then,
>compare them to what is now going on. I don't know if there were/are any
>Plot-D logs, but if there are any from 1993(specifically the fall of that
>year), compare them to what went on in Nov. 1994, as it was that specific
>incident I was refering to, where a rule interfered with my role-playing
>Buzz, Gunny, and Firefox, as well as Shadow, Dragon, Bloodtooth, and Silent
>Running.

Tom, Omega Island is the excepetion (before the Rule) that proves the rule.

Omega Island never go truly out of hand, one because we did not worry as much
about the overall consequences of our actions in those Idialic days of yore.

What brought the concept of not screwing with the world to home was not Omega
Island, But rather Germany and Doctor Doom. Doom's Germany was wonderful, yes
maybe some people would look at it as overpowered - Doom was Royalty, but he
never used it, he made a point NEVER to use it. Yet when Germany the source
book came out - Doom as he was could not survive - therefore the stroke.

All of this brought home the fact that we had to be more careful about what we
did, we either had to stay with FASA or write down all of our changes and
include them in the FAQ and make sure all the new people read it. The second
option was not feasible.



Remember - Shadowtk - Interactive Shadowrun BBS - we are a community and as
such we must have rules and mutual respect to act as such.

In the first few months, we flowed, we had a need for plot-d in some aspects -
but in others we did not. We winged it and flew by the seat of our pants.
But then again - we didn't start to get out of hand until near the end of
spring. I won't hide though that we had our problems then, it just they
weren't aired as much, there was just as much treading on egos then as now.

when everything is said and done - there has been no one time when the list has
been better than another time, because that is not the correct way to view
things. To make the list better and more fun, you need to involve the other
people and make them feel at home, then you will find out that you are having
fun as well.


Nightfox
Message no. 7
From: "Thomas W. Craig" <Craigtw1@***.COM>
Subject: Re: My take on things
Date: Sat, 21 Oct 1995 00:30:39 -0400
Dan,
I know about Doom...but if you remember until a time there is a sourcebook on
any particular country, the only thing we have is our own views of that
country. As for Doom's view of Germany, it WAS a VALID view of it, until the
Germany Sourcebook came out, and as a matter of fact, I still think his view
is a lot better than FASA's.

But Daniel, I do believe you fail to see my point, which is when rules affect
the role-playing of characters then those rules should be thrown out. As for
any attempts by Buzz and gang to enter Chicago, they would have kept trying
until 1) they were thrown in jail, 2) they were able to get in, or 3) they
got killed. The entire problem was that I didn't want them to get so
involved that they couldn't do anything else, so I dropped it. But, I will
reiterate what I said before; it should never been done in the first place,
UNTIL we found out everything that was going on.

As for Omega, yes, it was flying by the seat of oiur pants, but isn't that
what life is? We had much more interaction between characters and the
players then, than we do now.
Tom

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!