Back to the main page

Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Pepe Barbe a19960615@****.edu.pe
Subject: Low Essence and SR3 Initiative system
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2000 13:01:04 -0500
Hello everyone, again :)

I have two questions:

- How do you handle the low essence issue in RPGing? Does it affect the PCs
personalities? In which ways?

- I am sure this has been asked before. What do you think of the SR3
initiative system? Is it fair, real, balanced, or crap?

Pepe
Message no. 2
From: Andrew Murdoch toreador@***.bc.ca
Subject: Low Essence and SR3 Initiative system
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2000 11:11:26 -0800 (PST)
- Pepe Barbe <13:01/16-Dec-2000>

> I have two questions:
>
> - How do you handle the low essence issue in RPGing? Does it affect the PCs
> personalities? In which ways?

My own personal way of handling Low Essence: Low Essence does not affect
the personality per se, only the reactions of others to them if the
cyberware is particularly obvious. I allow characters to, if desired, have
an essence of exactly 0, however, and this has a lot of adverse affects on
personality. They're constantly hopped up on anti-rejection and
anti-system shock drugs, so they're a little dopey sometimes, and sooner
or later, just due to imablances, they WILL go insane. (I use sort of a
variation on the Matrix's Psychotropic Judas IC to determine what they do
during lapses).

> - I am sure this has been asked before. What do you think of the SR3
> initiative system? Is it fair, real, balanced, or crap?

Better than it was in SR2, balance wise, in that the faster ones still go
first, but everyone gets a chance to act before the street samurai
finishes dissecting them. I think it works.

--
Hail, Centurion!
Andrew C. Murdoch
toreador@***.bc.ca
http://members.nbci.com/corvisraven
Message no. 3
From: GSW13 darklordsatin@*******.com
Subject: Low Essence and SR3 Initiative system
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2000 20:08:37 -0500
> Hello everyone, again :)
>
> I have two questions:
>
> - How do you handle the low essence issue in RPGing? Does it affect the
PCs
> personalities? In which ways?

Personally I say as long as your essence is greater than zero you're fine.
The only adverse affects are related to the specific cyberware (ex. wired
reflexes make you twitch [a social downer] and obvious limbs are, well,
obvious).


> - I am sure this has been asked before. What do you think of the SR3
> initiative system? Is it fair, real, balanced, or crap?

I say it's balanced and pretty real. A faster guy can pull the trigger
earlier and more times per three seconds than a slower guy can. Also, if guy
X gets two actions divided into three seconds and guy Y gets one when you
divide the time up it works out that guy X takes an action, guy Y takes an
action and then guy X takes another action. Now if we wanted to make a good,
real model we'd have to make a hell of a lot more complex rules, so I say,
the system is very good as far as realism goes. Now as far as balance, just
think of the needed investment to get an initiative that high.

/*----------------------------------------------------------------
GSW13, George, Mr. Peabody, DL (Darklord) Satin, The God of Nothing,
CybrWyrm, Prince of Non-Sequitors, Keeper of Osigwad, President: Society of
Non-Violent Anarchists for a better America, Co-Founder: Danorgeian
Preformational Party, Waxman, The Virus, Bard of Osigwad, etc.
----------------------------------------------------------------*/
Message no. 4
From: Simon and Fiona sfuller@******.com.au
Subject: Low Essence and SR3 Initiative system
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2000 15:11:48 +1100
-----Original Message-----
From: Pepe Barbe <a19960615@****.edu.pe>
To: shadowrn@*********.com <shadowrn@*********.com>
Date: Sunday, December 17, 2000 5:02 AM
Subject: Low Essence and SR3 Initiative system


>Hello everyone, again :)
>
>I have two questions:
>
>- How do you handle the low essence issue in RPGing? Does it affect the PCs
>personalities? In which ways?

I say that after it drops below 2, it starts to affect you, the closer to 0,
the worse it gets. Your emotions fade, except for depression, ennui and
anger; and you generally feel detached, seperate from the real world. I have
never given any target modifiers or anything, it is a purely
character-centred role playing factor. Below .5 and the character should be
fairly suicidal, throwing themselves into dangerous situations and such.

>
>- I am sure this has been asked before. What do you think of the SR3
>initiative system? Is it fair, real, balanced, or crap?
>
Well, it isn't very realistic, but it adds to game balance. Once again
strong, tough and slow characters are worth taking. I like it.
Message no. 5
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Low Essence and SR3 Initiative system
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2000 12:46:08 +0100
According to Pepe Barbe, on Sat, 16 Dec 2000 the word on the street was...

> - How do you handle the low essence issue in RPGing? Does it affect the PCs
> personalities? In which ways?

I don't pay much attention to it, except for the social aspect when I
remember to apply the rules for this (I should really make a note of the
modifier each character would get under normal circumstances...).

> - I am sure this has been asked before. What do you think of the SR3
> initiative system? Is it fair, real, balanced, or crap?

It feels better than the SRII system, but it's actually pretty much the
same. The main good thing about the SR3 system, compared to the SRII one,
is that now at least everyone gets a chance to act before the street sams
kill all the NPCs; other than that, once you get beyond turn 1 it doesn't
really matter which of the two systems you use.

That said, I don't think it's a crap system; it's as good as most other
initiative systems I've seen, and better than a lot of them in that really
fast characters get to do more than the slow ones. If nothing else, it
works well for the kind of world SR's rules portray.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
hooray the blues of everyone
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+@ UL P L+ E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X+ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 6
From: Phil Smith phil_urbanhell@*******.com
Subject: Low Essence and SR3 Initiative system
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2000 12:20:56 -0000
>From: Pepe Barbe <a19960615@****.edu.pe>
>- How do you handle the low essence issue in RPGing? Does it affect the PCs
>personalities? In which ways?

Theoretically, characters should get more detached and emotionless the lower
their essence to the point of desensitisation (sp?). In practice I let
players play their characters however they want.

>- I am sure this has been asked before. What do you think of the SR3
>initiative system? Is it fair, real, balanced, or crap?

Its okay but if you don't have some kind of initiative enhancers you should
not be getting into firefights becuase you will not get very far. I guess
it depends on your campaign. I've been in games where other PCs were
rolling in the 20's for initiative, once every ten minutes my +1D6
initiative character with their single action fired a shot and ducked behind
cover whilst everyone else emptied their clips, jumped over things, hacked
people up in melee ect.

I guess if it gets unbalancing you could cut out multiple passes; everyone
rolls initiative and takes their actions in order from the highest to the
lowest, then everyone rolls initiative again.

Phil

Dying is an art like everything else.
_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
Message no. 7
From: Sebastian Wiers m0ng005e@*****.com
Subject: Low Essence and SR3 Initiative system
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2000 08:17:07 -0600
:- How do you handle the low essence issue in RPGing? Does it affect the PCs
:personalities? In which ways?

Generally, if you have a really low essence, you are already not normal,
psychologically speaking. You either have the trauma of forced essence loss
(drugs, vampires, involuntary implantations) or decided to get a big implant
for some reason. IMO, that psychological effect is probably the most
important to keep in mind, because it will show other players something of
the characters history. Any effect the low essence itself has is more
secondary. If its REAL low, yeah, you should avoid playing the character as
happy go lucky, but grim shadowrunners are common enough that it really
makes little difference, right? ;-)

:- I am sure this has been asked before. What do you think of the SR3
:initiative system? Is it fair, real, balanced, or crap?

I like it. The biggest change isn't actually who gets to go when- held
actions and such mixed that up enough under the old system that fast
characters who counted on going first every turn in an running combat were
dead characters. The biggest change (tactics effect wise) is that pools
only refresh once per turn, and movement is also measured per turn, not per
action. Both of those seem more realistic, make teaching the game a bit
simpler, and work pretty nicely as game effects. Really fast characters can
still be very, very nasty (they just spend thier first action hiding, and
THEN kill everybody) but the new system is a bit more fun for the rest of
the players.

-Sebastian
Message no. 8
From: Dimitris Antoniou (aka Cybertroll) cybertroll@***.forthnet.gr
Subject: Low Essence and SR3 Initiative system
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 12:12:20 +0200
>-----Original Message-----
>From: shadowrn-admin@*********.com
>[mailto:shadowrn-admin@*********.com]On Behalf Of Pepe Barbe
>Sent: Saturday, December 16, 2000 8:01 PM
>To: shadowrn@*********.com
>Subject: Low Essence and SR3 Initiative system
>
>
>Hello everyone, again :)
>
>I have two questions:
>
>- How do you handle the low essence issue in RPGing? Does it
>affect the PCs
>personalities? In which ways?

Imo anyone who decides to sacrifise large portions of his natural body and
mind is not a very stable person. Very low essense characters (less than 1)
start to lose their humanity and become heartless killers or very cynic at
the best. The coldness of the machine starts to take over their feelings...

>
>- I am sure this has been asked before. What do you think of the SR3
>initiative system? Is it fair, real, balanced, or crap?

More Fair, less Realism in the new initiative system. It's more fair cause
everyone gets a shot before the Street Sam, the Super Hero Adept or the
Super Fast Mage, blows them into oblivion. Less realism cause imo, a Street
Sam with 20+4d6 initiative should blow everyone into oblivion before they
even see him doing it. But I prefer the SR3 system. Imo the best change they
made was not the initiative but the Combat Pool refresh rate. That change
brought the real balance in the game.

Cybertroll

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Low Essence and SR3 Initiative system, you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!