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Message no. 1
From: Tom Pendergrast <pendergr@***.EDU>
Subject: Re: Metamagic/gaming philosophies
Date: Wed, 08 May 1996 14:18:55 -0700 (PDT)
> Sure, if you want to, go ahead... my _personal_ arguement is that for ANY
> cyber or illegal/permit type stuff, you need to explain how you got it,
> though. It's got to fit in. (I had one guy who wanted to explain having a
> million nuyen (Resources A) by being the kid of a megacorp boss, and then
> wanted to have Wired 3... it doesn't hold water)
>
> OTH, I limit what kind of things mages can start out with as well... I
> play for roleplaying, and to me, that's always meant that character
> development is important.

Yay! Its nice to see other people with similar ideas as mine. In our
current campaign (just starting), we had to justify everything. We had
to write up a history of the char, family etc... we had to answer the
"Twenty questions" in the SRII. Our contacts were to be defined people
with names and personalities, not just stats on a page. Our eq had to be
justified if it wasn't in the std SRII book. Sure, at first I didn't
like it, but now that I think about it, it works really well. Sorry,
I've been rambling... I guess I'm more of a role-player than anything
else... heh heh heh...


---Tom---
Message no. 2
From: Robyn King-Nitschke <rking@********.COM>
Subject: Re: Metamagic/gaming philosophies
Date: Wed, 8 May 1996 14:34:05 -0700
Tom writes:

>
> Yay! Its nice to see other people with similar ideas as mine. In our
> current campaign (just starting), we had to justify everything. We had
> to write up a history of the char, family etc... we had to answer the
> "Twenty questions" in the SRII. Our contacts were to be defined people
> with names and personalities, not just stats on a page. Our eq had to be
> justified if it wasn't in the std SRII book. Sure, at first I didn't
> like it, but now that I think about it, it works really well. Sorry,
> I've been rambling... I guess I'm more of a role-player than anything
> else... heh heh heh...
>

Count me in on this camp, too.

Both our games (the one I'm playing in and the one I GM) emphasize
roleplaying over all else. Our power levels are low (no book initiation,
no bioware, only a little bit of the latest cyberware) but our characters
are *extremely* well-developed. I can't stand the "stats-on-a-page"
school of gaming--it might work for others, but I just get bored. If I
don't know all the relevant details about my character (or have a chance
to come up with 'em) then I don't have fun playing him. We've had
long stretches of sessions where we did nothing but *gasp* talk, and it
was great! The personality differences between the characters make
interactions very interesting... :)

--o'Rat
(check out my Shadowrun page:
http://www.best.com/~shadorat/shadorun.htm)
Message no. 3
From: TopCat <topcat@******.net>
Subject: Re: Metamagic/gaming philosophies
Date: Wed, 8 May 1996 17:18:05 -0500
>> OTH, I limit what kind of things mages can start out with as well... I
>> play for roleplaying, and to me, that's always meant that character
>> development is important.

>Yay! Its nice to see other people with similar ideas as mine. In our
>current campaign (just starting), we had to justify everything. We had
>to write up a history of the char, family etc... we had to answer the
>"Twenty questions" in the SRII. Our contacts were to be defined people
>with names and personalities, not just stats on a page. Our eq had to be
>justified if it wasn't in the std SRII book. Sure, at first I didn't
>like it, but now that I think about it, it works really well. Sorry,
>I've been rambling... I guess I'm more of a role-player than anything
>else... heh heh heh...

Should see what we do... Aside from one group (which has a lot of people who
don't quite know the game well enough to do so yet) all of our characters
have a minimum of 5 pages of background (I'm talking typed here, not written).

In most this exceeds 10, in a few this exceeds 25 pages (in one over 45).
At first, this sort of thing was rewarded with tons of karma, so people
began writing up huge amounts of info on their characters. Which was great,
but a few of us became really powerful really fast (actually just really
in-depth as most karma was spent on background skills, and appropriately so)
and the rest moped along and complained because it wasn't their thing to
write like that.

So it got limited to 2 karma per page (30 karma max). You could write as
much as you wanted and it was encouraged that you did, the reward was still
there and all was cool even it is is for less karma. Now it's at 15 max
karma award (1/page up to 15) and it hasn't detracted any from the amount of
background we put out. If I don't feel myself wanting to write a ton about
a character, then I know I won't want to play him. The more experienced
gamers of our groups feel the same.

Anyway, I felt like I might've been bashed there for not providing
background for characters or demanding it and decided to throw out my two
cents. I won't even GM characters without written-out in-depth backgrounds.
Most importantly, we stick to those backgrounds and play the character based
on what we've created. More than once I've seen characters with long,
intricate backgrounds that end up playing like a character that could never
be the one they described before.

So just because I favor equality in the game doesn't mean I don't roleplay
or that I don't ask for it. How anyone could assume that equality in the
game meant this is just short of ludicrous.

--------------------------------------------------------
* Bob Ooton -- <topcat@******.net> *
* Golden Tiger Association -- Submission Fighting Team *
--------------------------------------------------------
* All you need to start up an insane asylum is *
* an empty room and the right kind of people *
--------------------------------------------------------
Message no. 4
From: Tom Pendergrast <pendergr@***.EDU>
Subject: Re: Metamagic/gaming philosophies
Date: Wed, 08 May 1996 18:49:39 -0700 (PDT)
> Count me in on this camp, too.
>
> Both our games (the one I'm playing in and the one I GM) emphasize
> roleplaying over all else. Our power levels are low (no book initiation,
> no bioware, only a little bit of the latest cyberware)

((Our campaigns are relatively high powered... but they don't start that
way. My one really nasty char now has 520 Karma, with att of 6+,
beta/delta 'ware (but an essence of 4.0), cultured bio (but a BI of 4),
and about a dozen 6+ skills, as well as Pistols of 14. Most people look
at him and think "Oh my god! He's an unbalanced fraggin' monster... but
they don't realize the two years of RPing that have gone into him. I
could sit down right now and off the top of my head, list off everything
in his life, down to his fiancee's favorite color... we played this group
from 2050 to 2057... and ew're continuing it again this summer... Some
people would think we're nuts or extreme power gamers for using chars of
this level... for me I could care less about all his combat power... its
the Role-Playing behind it that I like...))


> but our characters are *extremely* well-developed.

((Yay!))

> I can't stand the "stats-on-a-page" school of gaming...
((YAY!))

If I don't know all the relevant details about my character then I don't have
fun playing him.
((Me niether...))

> We've had long stretches of sessions where we did nothing but *gasp* talk,
> and it was great! The personality differences between the characters make
> interactions very interesting... :)

((And I thought I was the only one!))


---Tom---
Message no. 5
From: "Andre' Selmer" <031ANDRE@******.wits.ac.za>
Subject: Re: Metamagic/gaming philosophies
Date: Thu, 9 May 1996 10:32:28 GMT + 2:00
<snip>
@ > but our characters are *extremely* well-developed.

Ditto with our characters. We've been playing from '49 to '54. To
honest our characters dispite this are not terribly powerful. Yes in
our specialities we throw quiet a few dice, but most of the
characters (excluding the mages) have 15+ skills, my character has 28
different skills ranging from 2-5, a couple at 6 and above. Many of
these skills however are 'not useful' in a standard gaming session.
Training 5, Vampire Lore 7, Wood Carving 5 come to mind instantly.

@ > I can't stand the "stats-on-a-page" school of gaming...

@ If I don't know all the relevant details about my character then I don't have

I've lost count of the number of games we've played in which we
haven't used a single dice roll. Admittedly these many infomation
gathering excepades, but occationally like the last one. We argued
with a feathered Serpent for over 3 hours on good reasons not to kill
us.


@ > We've had long stretches of sessions where we did nothing but *gasp* talk,
@
@ > and it was great! The personality differences between the characters make
@ > interactions very interesting... :)

Personality differences are what makes our games interesting.

@ ((And I thought I was the only one!))

'fraid I have to spoil that belief. ;)
Andre'

-- We exist because you want us to, because you are
|__|__ afraid to fact the facts. We are what you fear
/\ /\ \ in the deep recesses of your soul, yourselves.
|\ /\ /| | It is there in the shadows of your soul and those
|/ \/ \| | of the street that we exist. Through the use of
\/__\/ might, magic, cunning, blood, sweat and tears we
protect you from your fears, from youselves, from
others and keep your utopia, not ours, intact.
Message no. 6
From: dbuehrer@****.org (David Buehrer)
Subject: Re: Metamagic/gaming philosophies
Date: Thu, 9 May 1996 08:10:46 -0600 (MDT)
TopCat wrote:
|
|So it got limited to 2 karma per page (30 karma max). You could write as
|much as you wanted and it was encouraged that you did, the reward was still
|there and all was cool even it is is for less karma. Now it's at 15 max
|karma award (1/page up to 15) and it hasn't detracted any from the amount of
|background we put out. If I don't feel myself wanting to write a ton about
|a character, then I know I won't want to play him. The more experienced
|gamers of our groups feel the same.

That is a most excellent idea. I'm going to offer the same deal to my
players the next time I see them. Maybe I can talk the other guys into
doing something similar for the games they run.

-David

/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\ dbuehrer@****.org /^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\
~~~~~~http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.html~~~~~~
Message no. 7
From: "Dr. Bolthy von Schotz" <bolthy@**.com>
Subject: Re: Metamagic/gaming philosophies
Date: Thu, 9 May 1996 09:18:08 -0500 (CDT)
On Thu, 9 May 1996, Andre' Selmer wrote:

> <snip>
> @ > but our characters are *extremely* well-developed.
>
> Ditto with our characters. We've been playing from '49 to '54. To
> honest our characters dispite this are not terribly powerful. Yes in
> our specialities we throw quiet a few dice, but most of the
> characters (excluding the mages) have 15+ skills, my character has 28
> different skills ranging from 2-5, a couple at 6 and above. Many of
> these skills however are 'not useful' in a standard gaming session.
> Training 5, Vampire Lore 7, Wood Carving 5 come to mind instantly.
>

Sounds like my character... started out as a decker... and now I'm
working him towards street doc, mechanic, rigger, and talismonger. =)

He's got cool skills like "Tir Tairngire Hurling Trivia", "Musical
Instrument (Drums)", "Photography", etc. I think his skill take up over
a page, with two column allowing room for future concentrations. =)

> @ > I can't stand the "stats-on-a-page" school of gaming...
>
> @ If I don't know all the relevant details about my character then I don't have
>
> I've lost count of the number of games we've played in which we
> haven't used a single dice roll. Admittedly these many infomation
> gathering excepades, but occationally like the last one. We argued
> with a feathered Serpent for over 3 hours on good reasons not to kill
> us.
>
>

This sounds like Paradise Lost... =)

> @ > We've had long stretches of sessions where we did nothing but *gasp* talk,
> @
> @ > and it was great! The personality differences between the characters make
> @ > interactions very interesting... :)
>
> Personality differences are what makes our games interesting.
>

I dunno... after one gaming sesion we had two characters arguing about
which one of them was a robot. (This was after the SNL skit concerning
accident insurance against robot attacks. "They are known for stealing
old people's medication for use as fuel.")

|\ /\ |\ | |\
|/ \/ | \ |\ | \
|\ /\ | |/ \ |
|/ / \ | | \|

http://weber.u.washington.edu/~bolthy
"Remember: Heaven is Blue. Tomorrow, the world."
-Head of the Blue Meanies
Message no. 8
From: Robyn King-Nitschke <rking@********.COM>
Subject: Re: Metamagic/gaming philosophies
Date: Thu, 9 May 1996 08:59:57 -0700
Tom writes:

>
> ((Our campaigns are relatively high powered... but they don't start that
> way. My one really nasty char now has 520 Karma, with att of 6+,
> beta/delta 'ware (but an essence of 4.0), cultured bio (but a BI of 4),
> and about a dozen 6+ skills, as well as Pistols of 14. Most people look
> at him and think "Oh my god! He's an unbalanced fraggin' monster... but
> they don't realize the two years of RPing that have gone into him. I
> could sit down right now and off the top of my head, list off everything
> in his life, down to his fiancee's favorite color... we played this group
> from 2050 to 2057... and ew're continuing it again this summer... Some
> people would think we're nuts or extreme power gamers for using chars of
> this level... for me I could care less about all his combat power... its
> the Role-Playing behind it that I like...))
>

I'm a firm believer that with a good GM and good players, it's possible
to play everything from almost no power all the way up to godlike
munchkinous power and still have a good, challenging game. The reason
that our game is so low-powered is that our GM feels that he doesn't want
the game to get out of hand. We're low powered in an absolute sense (we
probably could never play our characters in someone else's game without
major revision, for example) but in our world, we're pretty hot stuff.
I'd rather concentrate on character development anyway--If I got a Karma
point for every page of character background I have on Winterhawk, he'd
have almost 300 points (including the four short-stories-to-novelettes
I've written about him!) :)

>
> > I can't stand the "stats-on-a-page" school of gaming...
> ((YAY!))
>

We once played in a con game with a bunch of "stats and stuff" type
gamers. The GM asked one of these guys what his character was like. The
guy's reply: "He has an AK-98." The GM pressed for more detail about
the character's personality. The player thought about it a minute, then
replied, "He has an AK-98." I am *not* making this up. I fell asleep
halfway through the game. :)


> If I don't know all the relevant details about my character then I don't have
> fun playing him.
> ((Me niether...))
>

>
> ((And I thought I was the only one!))
>
>

Nope! In fact, I remember a particularly good after-game session after
Harlequin's Back. ShadoWraith (an Elven assassin with a lot of psychological
problems that manifest in an almost Spock-like lack of emotion) got to
dance with Desire at the party at the end. (Oh, yeah--Wraith hasn't had
...uh..."companionship"...in like 20 years...) This really made an impression
on him, so after we finished the game, Wraith and Winterhawk went down to
a coffee shop and spent about two hours (real time) discussing the implications
of this. It was great! We didn't pick up any dice once, and we stayed in
character the entire time. Dan (the GM) just sat back and watched us go.
Now *that's* fun! I often joke that during games, I'm "channeling"
Winterhawk, because I can fall into his personality and mannerisms so
easily.

--o'Rat
(http://www.best.com/~shadorat/shadorun.htm)
Message no. 9
From: "Andre' Selmer" <031ANDRE@******.wits.ac.za>
Subject: Re: Metamagic/gaming philosophies
Date: Mon, 13 May 1996 11:04:29 GMT + 2:00
@
@ We once played in a con game with a bunch of "stats and stuff" type
@ gamers. The GM asked one of these guys what his character was like. The
@ guy's reply: "He has an AK-98." The GM pressed for more detail about
@ the character's personality. The player thought about it a minute, then
@ replied, "He has an AK-98." I am *not* making this up. I fell asleep
@ halfway through the game. :)
@
So far I have only played in 2 SR tournaments. The first one was
decent, it was about rescuing some or other damsel in distress, what
was nice was the fact it was well written, the character got to
travel inbetween several countries.

The second game <gulp>, we picked up the character sheets, these
characters where so min/maxed it was not funny. The troll had a
panther assult cannon with depleated uranium tiped APDS Explosive
Rounds (I don't know either). The decker had a Fairlight Excaliber
(with programs through the bloody roof), the mage <shudder> was as
bad as where the other characters. Reading the intro, it stated that
this game was suitable for new players and these characters where
supposed to have very little experience. Needless to say, we looked
at the sheets, had a 13 second debate along these lines

Kieth: Right who wants to stay
<Silence>
Simon: Who wants to go
<Silent nodding of heads>
<Exit stage Left>



Andre'

-- We exist because you want us to, because you are
|__|__ afraid to fact the facts. We are what you fear
/\ /\ \ in the deep recesses of your soul, yourselves.
|\ /\ /| | It is there in the shadows of your soul and those
|/ \/ \| | of the street that we exist. Through the use of
\/__\/ might, magic, cunning, blood, sweat and tears we
protect you from your fears, from youselves, from
others and keep your utopia, not ours, intact.

Further Reading

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