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Message no. 1
From: Georg Greve <ggreve@*******.HANSE.DE>
Subject: Mages and Bioware (FASA people please read)
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 1995 17:43:46 +0200
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 1995 17:43:44 +0200 (MET DST)

Hi !

I would like to hear if any people of FASA are online here, because I
would like to hear why they thought Bioware is more intrusive to the
magical active Characters than Cyberware is.

If you take two magicians and mage one gets 2 points worth of
Cyberware, he loses 2 points of essence and the target number for
magical healings goes up 2 points. Mage two gets 2 points worth of
Bioware, loses 2 points of essence and his target number for magical
healings goes up 3 points (2 due to the essence loss and 1 for the
"add half of the body index to the TNs for magical healings" rule). So
the Cyberware is less intrusive which sounds pretty stupid to me -
it's like saying "Hey mages - forget the meat, take metal !".

Another consequence is that if a magically active character doesn't
care for his magical ability any more and decides to become a street
samurai, he cannot build in as much stuff as mundanes can - even if he
has no magic attribute left (the magical ability is in the genes - the
genes say you lose essence for Bioware - you don't alter the genes, so
you lose essence for Bioware even if there is no magic attribute
left).

I think a "Mages lose magic rating for building in Bioware AS IF it
costs them essence" rule would make pretty much sense, but the "mages
lose essence for building in Bioware" makes none.

I would LOVE to hear an "official" statement about this - is there
anyone online who is working for FASA and knows how and why this rule
was developed this way ??? Is the guy/girl online who invented this
rule ???

Thanks in advance,
Georg

P.S. I definitely DO NOT want to hear this "If you don't like the
rules, change them !" or "You can always build your own rules" crap !
I would like to hear WHY this rule was invented in the first place -
this saying "You can change the rules as you whish" is only an easy
way to say "We didn't bother very much thinking about the rules, so
change them to become logical", because EVERY Roleplayer alters EVERY
System, he plays and saying this is only a cheap trick to become rid
of this nasty habit of "thinking about the rules before publishing
them".

P.P.S. I definitely DO NOT want to offend anyone, all the statements
above are only my own opinion, but I would REALLY love to hear if
there is an "official" position to this one.
--
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Georg Greve greve@*******.Hanse.DE |
| Tel.: +49-40-8223482 greve@*******.uni-hamburg.de |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Message no. 2
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: Mages and Bioware (FASA people please read)
Date: Sat, 26 Aug 1995 12:45:15 +0200
>I would like to hear if any people of FASA are online here

Not by my knowledge...

>because I
>would like to hear why they thought Bioware is more intrusive to the
>magical active Characters than Cyberware is.

I think that is because FASA noticed at the last moment that
magically-active characters could get bioware without loss of Magic, with
the fix being to also make it cost Essence.

--
Gurth@******.nl - Gurth@***.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
I listen for the voice inside my head
GC3.0: GAT/! dpu s:- !a>? C+(++) U P L E? W(++) N K- w+ O V? PS+ PE Y PGP-
t(+) 5 X R+++>$ tv+(++) b+@ DI? D+ G++ e h! !r(--) y? Unofficial Shadowrun
Guru & NERPS Project Leader

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