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Message no. 1
From: Rand Ratinac docwagon101@*****.com
Subject: Deckers (was Re: Gen Con Matrix - Initial Impressions)
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2000 00:12:29 -0700 (PDT)
> > OK, just one question: Do deckers STILL require
their own session, hell...basically their own game? Or
has it been sped up so Meatones and trixers can work
in synch sanely?
>
> They always could, you just need to know how to do
it right.
> Marc Renouf (ShadowRN GridSec - "Bad Cop" Division)

Hey, Marc. Gripe time.

Not only was your comment incredibly patronising (1.
perhaps not intentionall, but it sure sounded that way
2. it sounds like you think you know how to do it
"right" - so it'd be a lot less patronising if you
told us how you do it), but you've basically just said
that Shadowrun is a flawed system. I've never seen any
other RPG so broken as to require specialised
knowledge and talents on the part of the GM in order
to keep things running smoothly. Of course, there are
a lot of games that I haven't played, but still...

Now I'm just a sideline heckler and I know it. I can't
think of any way to streamline and speed up the
decking system without turning to simple computer
skill tests, after a bit of roleplaying between the
decker and GM. But then the decker is shortchanged.
Why go to the trouble of creating a decker and
spending all your money on decking toys if the GM just
gets you to roll computer skill and then moves on?
This is actually what I'm doing atm in my PBeMs. IME,
decking, while bad enough in a face-to-face game, can
be death to a PBeM, so I don't allow pure deckers
(although, yes, I AM allowing deckers again! :) ). All
decker characters must have a secondary specialisation
(or decking must be the secondary talent), so that we
can run the decking sessions quickly and the decker
will also have other things to do in the game. Right
now I've got a doc/street sam with good computer skill
and a baby deck, a face/fixer with a junior deck and a
Wu Jen/decker. When they deck, I just get an idea of
what they're doing, run through a quick roleplaying
session if it's an important bit (no dice rolling) and
then have them roll a computer skill check, with the
target modified by the difficulty of the system, the
quality of their decking toys and how well and/or
cleverly they played the run.

Okay, I'm rambling, sorry. What I'm trying to get to,
though, is that SR is broken as far as decking goes.
Sure, we've got these nice rules and this great system
- but if the average GM can't run a decker without
ignoring all the other players (and face it, unless
the decker is performing overwatch on an infiltration,
the average GM can't), then it doesn't work. So what
does everyone else do about this dilemma? Has anyone
come up with house rules that give you a fairly
detailed decking system, but don't take up the time
(or don't take up so much GM attention, at least) of
the SR system?

====Doc'
(aka Mr. Freaky Big, Super-Dynamic Troll of Tomorrow, aka Doc'booner, aka Doc' Vader)

.sig Sauer

Can you SMELL what THE DOC' is COOKIN'!!!

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