| From: | Jeffrey Mach <mach@****.CALTECH.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | I wish FASA could count. |
| Date: | Sat, 8 Feb 1997 13:18:10 -0800 |
of the past 4 years so I could go to Grad School >sob<. And cut off from
their Shadowrun sourcebooks >GIANT sob<. Finally, I go and blow the cash
necessary to make sure I am not pulling Shadowrun info out of thin air.
Low and behold, I see this new _Shadowrun Companion: Beyond the
Shadows_, toss that onto the pile, get a hearty "Thank You!" from the
cashier and head home.
How's the Companion? It's some okay stuff. Like most FASA books, some of
it is entertaining, some genuinely forgettable, and the rest a
smattering in between. I think it is useful along the lines of a "Dungeon
Master's Guide." It describes possible ideas GM's may want to introduce,
but it is by no means critical to future Shadowrun play. They did a
revision of the Skill web and cleared up a few loopholes, also gave some
alternative character generation ideas.
The big buzz that I had heard about Edges and Flaws turned out to be a bit
over-hyped for the small section it got. I'd rather role-play most of it
out anyway. You can give your character and edge of "Common Sense" that
means the GM will have to tell you if you are about to do something
stupid. I always thought that was what empty soda cans were for.
(>>BONK!<< "Okay maybe the rest of the team thinks it would be unwise to
streak the I-marines wearing nothing but a hand-grenade and a smile, so my
character won't do that.) Somehow demanding characters take a penalty as
nasty as Color Blindness to offset having a High School education (which
somehow lets you default with one less circle for knowledge skills) seems
a bit...strange.
Just one glaring arror so far: in trying to clarify the SRII's statement
that 90% of karma earned goes to Good Karma, and 10% to Karma Pool (Sounds
clear to me). They say: "In simpler terms, a character who receives 10
points of Good Karma adds the next Good Karma point to his Karma Pool.
Then the cycle begins again." AARGH! It doesn't take a Ph.D. in Math to
figure out that 10 out of 100 (10%) is the same as 1 out of 10, and not 1
out of 11 (the new 1:10 ratio). Oh well.
Only in trying to write up character's for ShadowTK have I had a problem
like this. For a high powered character, what are they supposed to do
with all that Karma Pool??? (at 1 to 10 [or 11?] is seems to me it could
add up to a large digit with considerably rough roleplaying) I mean Karma
Pool is some of the most useful stuff in all existance, what do you guys
who have been running for a long time with the same character do with all
of it? I just think it is a little strange in FASA's world of geometric
scaling, that you could come by something that useful linearly.
--My two yen
Jeff
P.S. Is anybody on this list at UTexas or know somebody who runs SR here?
If I don't get myself in a game relatively soon, I'm going to go stir
crazy.
