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Message no. 1
From: rhoded01@******.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU (Ahzmandius)
Subject: High Tech VS Low Tech
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 08:43:39 -0600 (CST)
Does everybody her play that all weapons/armour/equipment is available? What
is the average pay for your runs? Did they all start off with priority A in
resources? Try starting them off as street rats, priority E in resources,
but give them more freedom with race and CHARATER DEVELOPMENT!!!!!!!!!

Ahz
Message no. 2
From: "Damion Milliken" <dam01@***.edu.au>
Subject: Re: High Tech VS Low Tech
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1996 00:32:50 -1400 (EST)
Ahzmandius writes:

> Does everybody her play that all weapons/armour/equipment is available?

Not initially, no. I usually restrict the Grimything, S-tech, Awakenings
and C-tech to begin with. SSC is "the latest, hottest tech" at the start of
any campaing that I run. And initiation is unheard of. Quite fun.

> What is the average pay for your runs?

20,000 - 30,000 nuyen for an average run. Less for runners just starting
off or for simple runs (5,000 nuyen or so). Much much more for very
dangerous or skilled runs (50,000 - 100,000 or so).

> Did they all start off with priority A in resources?

Often enough, yes. It usually bought lots of alpha and beta grade
cyberware. I can live with this. OTOH, I also fiddle with the SR Master
Character Creation Table, and downscale most of the choices. Makes
priority A resources a bit less nuyen and force point intenstive (at least
until it gets increased to keep pace with character power development).

> Try starting them off as street rats, priority E in resources, but give
> them more freedom with race and CHARATER DEVELOPMENT!!!!!!!!!

This is something that I try to do most of the time. The campaign I was
going to run was going to start off low-powered (in terms of skills,
spells, nuyen and so on). (However, I'm now playing in someone elses game,
so I won't be running that one.) One problem with disallowing the high
resources picks is that magical characters become extremely attractive for
power. Particularily Physical Adepts.

Anyway, yer pays yer nuyen and takes yer chances.

--
Damion Milliken University of Wollongong E-mail: dam01@***.edu.au

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Message no. 3
From: "Sascha Pabst" <Sascha.Pabst@**********.Uni-Oldenburg.DE>
Subject: Re: High Tech VS Low Tech
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 18:01:13 +0000
On 31 Jul 96 at 8:43, Ahzmandius wrote:
> Does everybody her play that all weapons/armour/equipment is available? What
> is the average pay for your runs? Did they all start off with priority A in
> resources? Try starting them off as street rats, priority E in resources,
> but give them more freedom with race and CHARATER DEVELOPMENT!!!!!!!!!

Sure... everything is available. No problem.
There's just a slight problem... first, the players gotta _find_out_ where the
object is available, then they gotta make contacts to the right person/people,
THEN they gotta get the money (and on rare items I see no need to be limited
by Street Index - "hey, if they are _willing_ to pay that much, who am _I_ to
stop them?" {unknown fixer}.
Although, we play a quite continious timeline - no "now it's three months
later, what did you do in between?", but *GM1 leaves top of table, GM2 takes
over* "It's the next morning, your bodies are still arching from last night's
tortures, but your *point at some player* phone is ringing..."
This makes it quite difficult to aquire new cyberware or even to learn new
spells ("Wait, wait! I need a few days..."). But, sure, everything is
available, even the stuff from Cybertech... if you can get it :-)

Sascha
--
+---___---------+----------------------------------------+--------------------+
| / / _______ | Jhary-a-Conel aka Sascha Pabst |The one who does not|
| / /_/ ____/ |Sascha.Pabst@**********.Uni-Oldenburg.de| learn from history |
| \___ __/ | | is bound to live |
|==== \_/ ======| *Wearing hats is just a way of life* | through it again. |
|LOGOUT FASCISM!| - Me | |
+------------- http://www.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de/~jhary -----------------+
Message no. 4
From: rhoded01@******.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU (Ahzmandius)
Subject: Re: High Tech VS Low Tech
Date: Thu, 01 Aug 1996 01:06:28 -0600 (CST)
First, I would like to thank all of those who responed to my message. Now I
would like to make a few observations:

The people that seem to be having the most amount of problems with
overpowered characters all play High Tech level games. The danger of
allowing characters to use the obscene weaponry in the various books is that
they find the martial answer to problems as opposed to the mental answer. I
admit, I am very guilty of this, but the best character development happens
between the frays.

Have most of you read the Neo-Anarchist Guide to North America? If you have
than be aware that in, for example, the CFS (California Free State) anything
greater than a small bladed weapon or a projectile weapon carries a fine.
Usually when the fuzz finds a illegal weapon, they also find illegal
bio/cyberware, etc. Play this up, it gets the players to use weapons that
they are not happy with, but forces them to plan more and work as a team.

Players and GM's alike have criticized my occasional street rat campaigns,
saying that "it's unfair to the mages, street sams, deckers, etc." My reply
to this is that unlike AD&D, SRII doesn't have classes. Every once in a
while, I may make a character an unknown Phys adept or mage adept, they have
to either find out before elective (non-elective) surgery, or never realize
that they had it to begin with. It makes the game more realistic. I can be
more free with the street rats when awarding karma, because they usually
spend it more wisely. The street rats also develope the ever valuable
background that is imparitive to the elusive rep stat.

In the campaigns that I play and gm, a good deal of the perception tests and
character reaction tests are roled by the gm, that way the player never
knows whether the info that get is the whole truth. I also use paranoia dice.

I like the need the contacts thing for acquiring stuff, I also like the time
period idea. We have just started using street index adjustments to pricing,
but availability in our game is very rare.


Comments?


Ahzmandius
The Wonderful Wizard of Ahz

"is somebody mything an arm?"
Message no. 5
From: Charles Winston <mange@*.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: High Tech VS Low Tech
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 23:49:29 -0700 (PDT)
I have read alot of posts in the last few days and I think that anything
heavier than a pistol is absolutely unnecessary. On a SHADOWrun one
should not even need to fire a shot, and if one was absolutely forced to,
a heavy pistol should be sufficient (Think Thunderbolt w/APDS). If the
opposition won't crumble to that, the job should have been done by a
paramilitary group, not a shadowrun team.

Charles
mange@*.washington.edu
Message no. 6
From: "Gurth" <gurth@******.nl>
Subject: Re: High Tech VS Low Tech
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1996 10:28:40 +0100
Ahzmandius said on 8:43/31 Jul 96...

> Does everybody her play that all weapons/armour/equipment is available?

Anything that has another Availability rating than "-" or "N/A" can be
had in my campaign. The limiting factor here is that I let the
*character* roll to see if he/she can get the item, not the fixer. This
means nobody has yet walked up to a fixer and said "I need a Panther
cannon, pronto" and get one delivered a while later, simply because
nobody reliably rolls high enough for that sort of thing. And no trying
again before the original acquisition time is up.

> What is the average pay for your runs?

Varies widely, anywhere from 5000 for a night on the town (i.e. a
very simple run that won't take more than a day to complete) to maybe 100K
if it's expected to be very complex and involves a lot of travel.

> Did they all start off with priority A in resources?

Only one character did, the street sam (naturally). I think he could have
gotten the same stats by taking Attributes at a higher priority and buying
less cyberware, though.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
I've been searching most my life for anything to believe in,
like God or love or something -- any kind of simple solution.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Character Mortuary: http://huizen.dds.nl/~mortuary/mortuary.html <-

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Message no. 7
From: "Gurth" <gurth@******.nl>
Subject: Re: High Tech VS Low Tech
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1996 11:39:15 +0100
Ahzmandius said on 1:06/ 1 Aug 96...

> Have most of you read the Neo-Anarchist Guide to North America? If you have
> than be aware that in, for example, the CFS (California Free State) anything
> greater than a small bladed weapon or a projectile weapon carries a fine.

Not a real worry, this one. Read the CalFree sourcebook, you'll find out
that the law in the CFS varies depending on which square meter of land
you're currently standing on, and more precisely, on who owns that square
meter...

Your comment applies to most of North America, but in a large part of the
CFS you're more likely to get thrown in jail for being an
elf/ork/troll/maybe even dwarf carrying a knife than for being a human with
a Panther cannon.

> Usually when the fuzz finds a illegal weapon, they also find illegal
> bio/cyberware, etc. Play this up, it gets the players to use weapons that
> they are not happy with, but forces them to plan more and work as a team.

My way of handling this is to let the players know the approximate penalty
if caught with the gear they claim to carry around with them all the time.
It usually does the trick of making them run away as soon as a cop is in
sight (or when they hear a siren).

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
I've been searching most my life for anything to believe in,
like God or love or something -- any kind of simple solution.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Character Mortuary: http://huizen.dds.nl/~mortuary/mortuary.html <-

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Message no. 8
From: Ubiquitous <weberm@*******.net>
Subject: Re: High Tech VS Low Tech
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1996 12:57:28 -0400 (EDT)
At 10:28 AM 8/1/96 +0100, Gurth wrote:
>Ahzmandius said on 8:43/31 Jul 96...

>> Does everybody her play that all weapons/armor/equipment is available?
>
>Anything that has another Availability rating than "-" or "N/A"
can be
>had in my campaign. The limiting factor here is that I let the
>*character* roll to see if he/she can get the item, not the fixer. This
>means nobody has yet walked up to a fixer and said "I need a Panther
>cannon, pronto" and get one delivered a while later, simply because
>nobody reliably rolls high enough for that sort of thing. And no trying
>again before the original acquisition time is up.

I like the idea of them having to wait for the duration time, but I'm not
sure what you meant by them rolling them self. Do you mean they have to use
their aquisition skill like the fixer does?

--
"I dyde shyte thre grete toordes." Fables of Aesop,
Caxton translation,
V15 1484
Message no. 9
From: The Jestyr <s421539@*******.gu.edu.au>
Subject: Re: High Tech VS Low Tech
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 1996 08:02:47 +1000 (EST)
> My way of handling this is to let the players know the approximate penalty
> if caught with the gear they claim to carry around with them all the time.
> It usually does the trick of making them run away as soon as a cop is in
> sight (or when they hear a siren).

Really? It tends to make our group geek the cop. :( [If he's alone, that
is - funny how the cops now travel in patrols of eight, isn't it?]


Lady Jestyr

------------------------------------------------------
Heisenberg may have slept here.
------------------------------------------------------
Elle Holmes s421539@*****.student.gu.edu.au
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1503
------------------------------------------------------
I don't have enemies, it's just that my best friends
are trying to kill me.
------------------------------------------------------
Message no. 10
From: "Paul J. Adam" <shadowrn@********.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: High Tech VS Low Tech
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1996 23:20:42 +0100
In message <Pine.OSF.3.92a.960731233226.21200A-100000@*******.u.washingt
on.edu>, Charles Winston <mange@*.washington.edu> writes
>I have read alot of posts in the last few days and I think that anything
>heavier than a pistol is absolutely unnecessary. On a SHADOWrun one
>should not even need to fire a shot, and if one was absolutely forced to,
>a heavy pistol should be sufficient (Think Thunderbolt w/APDS). If the
>opposition won't crumble to that, the job should have been done by a
>paramilitary group, not a shadowrun team.

Not necessarily. Besides, to some people (like myself) many paramilitary
groups qualify as shadowrun teams :) I like a more military/intelligence
campaign, which tends to produce a higher violence level.

--
"There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and
praiseworthy."
Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk
Message no. 11
From: Jamie Houston <s430472@*******.gu.edu.au>
Subject: Re: High Tech VS Low Tech
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 1996 10:11:50 +1000 (EST)
On Fri, 2 Aug 1996, The Jestyr wrote:

>
> > My way of handling this is to let the players know the approximate penalty
> > if caught with the gear they claim to carry around with them all the time.
> > It usually does the trick of making them run away as soon as a cop is in
> > sight (or when they hear a siren).
>
> Really? It tends to make our group geek the cop. :( [If he's alone, that
> is - funny how the cops now travel in patrols of eight, isn't it?]
>
>
> Lady Jestyr
>
Hey....we haven't geeked a cop in ages....well, a few weeks....ok...last
Thursday, maybe....but he started it!!

Hamish



------------------------------------------------
I'm not insane...but Mr Flibble, my invisible
friend, is a total looney!
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Hamish, the Mad Scot
AKA Jamie Houston when not in a kilt
s430472@*****.student.gu.edu.au

/\/\/\/\//\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"So I kill, maim, destroy and dismember...
Does that make me a bad person?"
-----------------------------------------------
Message no. 12
From: "Gurth" <gurth@******.nl>
Subject: Re: High Tech VS Low Tech
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 1996 11:48:36 +0100
Ubiquitous said on 12:57/ 1 Aug 96...

> >Anything that has another Availability rating than "-" or
"N/A" can be
> >had in my campaign. The limiting factor here is that I let the
> >*character* roll to see if he/she can get the item, not the fixer. This
> >means nobody has yet walked up to a fixer and said "I need a Panther
> >cannon, pronto" and get one delivered a while later, simply because
> >nobody reliably rolls high enough for that sort of thing. And no trying
> >again before the original acquisition time is up.
>
> I like the idea of them having to wait for the duration time, but I'm not
> sure what you meant by them rolling them self. Do you mean they have to use
> their aquisition skill like the fixer does?

I mean they roll their Etiquette skill, and I use the results from that.
The characters have no acquisition skill (unless they want to have one)
but I use the appropriate Etiquitte concentration in its place -- if they
go to their street contacts, it's Etiquette (Street), etc.

This originally came from mis-reading and mis-remembering the rules for
equipment acquisition in the SRII rulebook, but we stuck with it because
it seems to make slightly more sense: this way, it depends on how well the
the character knows how to deal with people, not on the fixer's abilities.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
I can give it up any time.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Character Mortuary: http://huizen.dds.nl/~mortuary/mortuary.html <-

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Message no. 13
From: "Sascha Pabst" <Sascha.Pabst@**********.Uni-Oldenburg.DE>
Subject: Re: High Tech VS Low Tech
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 1996 16:38:22 +0000
On 2 Aug 96 at 8:02, The Jestyr wrote:
> > My way of handling this is to let the players know the approximate penalty
> > if caught with the gear they claim to carry around with them all the time.
> > It usually does the trick of making them run away as soon as a cop is in
> > sight (or when they hear a siren).
>
> Really? It tends to make our group geek the cop. :( [If he's alone, that
> is - funny how the cops now travel in patrols of eight, isn't it?]
Teams of two are sufficient in my opinion. The first cop approaches the
suspicious person (unless he detects weapons, of course), while the second one
offers cover from behind and has radio contact with the local HQ. Shoot one of
them, and the connect breaks. Maybe one of them or both even have cameras on
shoulder mounts. Geek a cop, and your live will be hell... "Hey, officer, that
guy over there just stole a car!" - "Shutup, citizen, there are more important
matters right now, somewhere in town is a cop killer running free!!!"
Sascha
--
+---___---------+----------------------------------------+--------------------+
| / / _______ | Jhary-a-Conel aka Sascha Pabst |The one who does not|
| / /_/ ____/ |Sascha.Pabst@**********.Uni-Oldenburg.de| learn from history |
| \___ __/ | | is bound to live |
|==== \_/ ======| *Wearing hats is just a way of life* | through it again. |
|LOGOUT FASCISM!| - Me | |
+------------- http://www.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de/~jhary -----------------+
Message no. 14
From: pbailey@***.ipswichcity.qld.gov.au (Peter Bailey)
Subject: Re: High Tech VS Low Tech
Date: Sun, 4 Aug 96 21:04:25
Hi Lady,

> > My way of handling this is to let the players know the approximate =
penalty
> > if caught with the gear they claim to carry around with them all th=
e time.
> > It usually does the trick of making them run away as soon as a cop =
is in
> > sight (or when they hear a siren).
>
> Really? It tends to make our group geek the cop. :( [If he's alone, t=
hat
> is - funny how the cops now travel in patrols of eight, isn't it?]

Hmm. In our game it depends on where the characters are as to how many =
cops
are in a patrol, and what vehicle they travel in. The cops also have th=
ose
monitors on their vitals that scream when they go down. This usually br=
ings
on some heavier backup quickly, and a smart cop won't even take on a te=
am
if he/she/it spots anything heavier than a pistol unless he/she/it has
backup.

The cops in my game drive things like unarmoured americars or ride bike=
s
around the better parts of town, and in security areas designated 'E' t=
hey
patrol in partial heavy body armour, and drive things like citymasters
armoured/armed to the teeth, with air support in the form of a wasp or
yellowjacket complete with gaggle of drones.

Lone Star does NOT like paying death penalties to dependants. Makes
recruiting difficult, and is expensive.

--

Internet: pbailey@***.com.au Fidonet: 3:640/281.3

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PGP fingerprint = 9C A2 D9 D8 CF 78 EC E7 3D 9F C7 C7 FD 11 85 4E
Member Team AMIGA
Message no. 15
From: "Ferri Pagano" <Ferri_Pagano_at_STRM__Amsterdam1@******.com>
Subject: Re[2]: High Tech VS Low Tech
Date: Mon, 05 Aug 96 10:31:26 EST
> My way of handling this is to let the players know the approximate penalty
> if caught with the gear they claim to carry around with them all the time.
> It usually does the trick of making them run away as soon as a cop is in
> sight (or when they hear a siren).

Really? It tends to make our group geek the cop. :( [If he's alone, that
is - funny how the cops now travel in patrols of eight, isn't it?]


Lady Jestyr
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Read corporate security and the lonestar books.
Your players will never again consider lonestar a pushover.
Believe me. :)
F.
Message no. 16
From: Pete Sims <petesims@********.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: High Tech VS Low Tech
Date: Sun, 11 Aug 1996 18:24:19 +0100
In article <9607058392.AA839250884@********.stream.com>, Ferri Pagano
<Ferri_Pagano_at_STRM__Amsterdam1@******.com> writes
>
>
>> My way of handling this is to let the players know the approximate penalty
>> if caught with the gear they claim to carry around with them all the time.
>> It usually does the trick of making them run away as soon as a cop is in
>> sight (or when they hear a siren).
>
>Really? It tends to make our group geek the cop. :( [If he's alone, that
>is - funny how the cops now travel in patrols of eight, isn't it?]
>
Even if they don't travel in groups of eight, in the majority of cities,
the response time for Lone Star/PD or other security, is usually fairly
quick. Obviously, it depends whether it's city or urban, but city
should have a response time to "Officer In Distress", of 2 minutes max.
And as we all know, the police don't like it when one of their own is in
deep drek, and come in force, loaded for bear.
>
>Lady Jestyr
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Read corporate security and the lonestar books.
> Your players will never again consider lonestar a pushover.
> Believe me. :)
> F.
>

Lady Jestyr is quite right, I also made the books available to my
players, once they'd read them, attitudes towards the law, changed
noticeably.

They are surprisingly polite and helpful to the cops these days. :-)
--
Pete Sims

Further Reading

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