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From:	Mike Goldberg <michael.goldberg@*******.COM>
Subject:	The Wanderer and stuff...
Date:	Sat, 14 Oct 1995 00:11:53 MST

Message no. 1 Let me repeat myself. I am on digest format of plot-d. That means I
see a huge message dump once a day. If you want to be involved in the
Wanderer story, do what the owner's of Aegis Security, Kor, and Dragon
have done... write me privately.

I will not handle that one through plot-d.

Brian Angliss, modifying the background count of a whole suburb of a
sprawl constitutes a major event in a campaign world. Since we are
supposed to keep close to FA$A's world, isn't that as much overkill as
killing off the pope? *smile* I do not want this to turn into me
attacking you. And true to that, I have erased the whole second part
of this e-mail and tried again.

I think you need to carefully consider before you leap on your
actions, what other people might consider the actions to be more than
just a minor campaign event. I don't willingly try and add something
that FA$A hasn't done already. I also don't try and do something
major unless I see that FA$A is about to do it anyway. The only time
I did something major, it turned into such a mess that it really
wasn't worth it. In addition the write-up for it happened at such a
bad time, I didn't do the post justice in my mind. I think good
stories can be written about the most trivial of runs. I don't think
you need earth shattering or gut retching to come up with an
entertaining story. Just think of whether your players would enjoy it
if just for once something went simple. Sure there are a lot of
incredible characters out there, it doesn't mean that every job Buzz,
Dark Angel, Kor, Shadowfox, Righteous, Fenris, Nightfox, etc., has to
be an incredible, with 2001 twists and such jobs. I've been working
hard to give equal time to my minor characters: Nightingale (although
there hasn't been much that she would respond to), Sprinkler, Black
Knight, Rook, and Colleen.

How much damage have my plotlines caused to a city? A group of
metahumans wiped out in a small hidden pocket from the attention of
most of Seattle. A building blown up. A run against Ares that was
going smoothly ended up failing. Two firefights in the slums of
Japan. Pittsburgh was my only one where a city felt the explosions
literally, and that was because FA$A did it in Seattle, and I was
trying to mirror events similar to what was happening in Seattle
through the published module.

M.

From:	NIGHTFOX <DJWA@******.UCC.NAU.EDU>
Subject:	Re: The Wanderer and stuff...
Date:	Sat, 14 Oct 1995 11:01:36 -0700

Message no. 2 > Brian Angliss, modifying the background count of a whole suburb of a
> sprawl constitutes a major event in a campaign world. Since we are
> supposed to keep close to FA$A's world, isn't that as much overkill as
> killing off the pope? *smile* I do not want this to turn into me
> attacking you. And true to that, I have erased the whole second part
> of this e-mail and tried again.

Actually - i would have to disagree. Raising the background count in a certain
area of Redmond - for a while - would not disrupt FASA's game world.

1. most people won't notice
2. Its not all THAT drastic - it will go away
3. It really doesn't change anything. Background counts will fluxuate
Its not like adding a 9th corp or killing a pres.
4. It will be taken care of in a decent period of time. (I hope)

The main concept of - "Don't screw with the World" is that when new people come
in - they aren't required to read the "this is where we differ from FASA FAQ"
As long as its something that won't messe with this its ok - like:

1. Maxim is a corp - people will figure this out - there's always big corps
that aren't mentioned

2. Another small bug group raising and falling - they might make the news - but
it don't screw the world.

3. Frypp's corp really doesn't matter unless he causes Cal-Free to become
truelly free.

> if just for once something went simple. Sure there are a lot of
> incredible characters out there, it doesn't mean that every job Buzz,
> Dark Angel, Kor, Shadowfox, Righteous, Fenris, Nightfox, etc., has to
> be an incredible, with 2001 twists and such jobs. I've been working
> hard to give equal time to my minor characters: Nightingale (although
> there hasn't been much that she would respond to), Sprinkler, Black
> Knight, Rook, and Colleen.

I agree - having these types of characters is in many ways VERY limiting.
Most of my character "Retired" within the first 4 months of ShadowTk

Nightfox

From:	Freddy Frypp <JAMES-CUENO@*********.EDU>
Subject:	Re: The Wanderer and stuff...
Date:	Sun, 15 Oct 1995 13:58:49 CST

Message no. 3 > 3. Frypp's corp really doesn't matter unless he causes Cal-Free to become
> truelly free.

Anarchy in the CFS!

To tell everyone the absolute truth, Freddy has very limited
political goals. Namely, he just wants to be President of the Known
Universe. And if you ask me, he meets most of the qualifications,
too.....

jim

From:	ANGLISS BRIAN EDWARD <angliss@****.COLORADO.EDU>
Subject:	Re: The Wanderer and stuff...
Date:	Sun, 15 Oct 1995 20:45:11 -0600

Message no. 4 Hmmmm.... Could somebody send the original of this post to me? I either
never got it or accidently deleted it without reading it closely. And I
much prefer to respond to stuff when I know the whole story behind what
I'm responding to. But I'll do my best now and try again later when I
get the whole thing.

First, I'm sorry if torqued anybody off by saying "the background count
in Redmond is going up." I had originally thought to ask, actually, but
thought that it wasn't that big a deal that it constituted a "request
permission" situation. Next time I'll either ask here or just do the
stuff all on Talk where it can be either agreed to or have the poster
determined to be nuts/totally wrong. Things like this I don't see to be
major and world-altering.

However, I will admit that I have a habit of doing MAJOR stuff in my
plots. Let's see.... Lucifer all but destroyed Boston after Dante was
killed(although Dante's death was minor, Lucifer was not). Dante, when
he 'died' the first time, released Gamma Anthrax in Redmond(why do I love
screwing with Redmond so much?) and killed about 5000 people, mostly
squatters, in the process. I also did the German Manaspike that made
Roxey what she is today, and originally had intended to make Maxim the
ninth of the Big 8. Oh, and I did the AJ rescue from NY and the riots
that followed, and the recent implosion of the InterPol HQ in NY too.

Should I have asked permission to do all those? Some of them were back
before we did stuff on Plot-D. But destrying Boston, or blowing up a
building in NY? I probably should have asked, and I didn't. But at the
time very few people seemed to complain. But when I thought to make
Maxim a AAA corp, I did ask and it was shot down. I had to do some
severe plot modifications in the process, but it worked out ok and my end
results were not too far from what I had originally wanted anyway.

But back to the background count: I have always figured that a good
chunk of Redmond has a permanent Count of some kind. The area around
Haven does, but it's always been a "good" count. Now it's a bad one.
Considering the violence that seems to be centering about it, that is
being created by design, I might add, it's only natural. I happened to
decide to throw in the Wraith to add color, and had originally
intended to have a small fomented gang war around Haven. I'll cover that
a little more in another post.

So I guess I disagree about changing the background count of Redmond as
being a major, world altering effect. If you did it downtown, maybe, if
it happened to cause problems in the process. But Redmond? Not to me,
anyway.

But stuff that I'm doing now that could almost be counted as World
Altering: The existance of Haven. The idea that a safe zone in Redmond
is free from gang violence is pretty extreme. That there exists a man
who devotes his life to taking kids off the streets, educating them, and
then helping them make thier life according to thier dreams is certainly
possible, even likely. But what about Val's being trusted by, as I have
stated previously, ALL the major gangs in Seattle? That's
world-altering, yet I've seen no complaints about it. As I've presented
it, it's not major enough to drastically effect the FASA world we coexist
in. Hell, it doesn't even effect most of the gangs, as they only come to
Val when the're about to totally wipe each other out and don't want to
die. Kinda like the corps with the Corp Court, but for the Seattle
gangs.

To me, this is world altering, but to a level that is virtually
unimportant regardless of it's possible ramifications. It's not FASA
approved, so could be totally reversed in the future. But where do I
draw the line and start asking for permission to do everything that a
character does? Drake and Interpol's existance are world altering and a
hell of a lot more likely to be contested than Val and Haven. And
indeed, I've cut back a lot from what I originally envisioned Interpol's
Special Branch to be involved in, but both entities are still here.

Everything we do here is potentially world altering in some way or
another. Some things just have a greater chance than others. Interpol?
Sure does. Decent chance of being a problem in the future, so I keep it
under control, limited to Drake and his hunts for runners. Haven? Yep,
but on a lesser level. Maxim Arms? You betcha. BIG time on this one.

The really major things that can't be hidden or reversed through further
plots should be discussed(that's why I've not come out and talked about
my current plot with Maxim--I have every intention to reverse it
completely when what was done becomes knowledge.), and I'll do my best to
do so.

Actually, not having what was originally said in the original post, I
could have gone on and waxed randomly here, and if I did so, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry also if I've pissed anyone off. It was certainly not my
intention. If anyone alienates the whole list, then their characters and
plots will simply be ignored, and I certainly don't want that.

On a different note, the runs I enjoyed the most are the ones that are
character development of one character or anohter. I loved the Germany
one with Roxey, Nightfox, Etsy, and Val. It not only developed Roxey
into something....else, it helped Etsy some(but not much) and revealed a
LOT about Val that nobody either picked up on or cared to. It revealed
some of his history, but hopefully in a way that was subtle enough that
it didn't shock or anger the reader. And the run to TNO, again for Val,
was another trip and a half. And the Roxey/Nex runs developed thier
relationship so much that I still have a hard time running Roxey without
Nex. And the break out of AJ from NY, after being sentenced to life in
prison for all his normal crimes and to death for the simple accident of
being forced into a life of vampirism against his will. And all the
partys that always seemed to go wrong(I'll try to keep this Halloween's
party relatively quiet, everyone). And when AJ got blown up and went
nuts for a few months(literally). And the list goes on and on and on...

Actually, looking at that list, I think I've been here WAY too long....

Brian

From:	"Thomas W. Craig" <Craigtw1@***.COM>
Subject:	Re: The Wanderer and stuff...
Date:	Mon, 16 Oct 1995 00:47:09 -0400

Message no. 5 Brian,
I agree with you 100%. It seems everyone is a little hurt that you didn't
ask, but it doesn't matter background counts fluctuate. The only consistant
thing about them is the range of the fluctuation. But in this case, because
of a change in the situation in Redmond; the background count is altered
dramatically. Remember folks, FASA has stated that people in the 2050's
don't CARE about Redmond, as a matter of fact many would like to see it
totally demolished and replaced.
Tom

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