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From:	Fade <runefo@***.UIO.NO>
Subject:	Munchie scum (Was: Re: Players on the List)
Date:	Wed, 20 Aug 1997 03:37:28 +0000

Message no. 1 > Anyone care to start up an anti munchie thread just as he joins? I want
> this fully in swing when he signs on. :)
>
> How about everyone's gripes about characters with the same personaility,
> no matter their back ground? Zwoot!

One of my players has played about 6-10 different players. He also
has great fun designing characters. He has probably hundreds stacked
away somewhere.

99% of them are as follows:
Ex merc or otherwise militarily inclined.
Martial arts experts.

Ok. They also fall into two categories, design wise...

Physad, totally uncybered, 12 stealth & unarmed combat.

Chromelord. Always stats A, tech B, skills C.
Wired reflexes lvl 2, smartgun link, a combination of
muscle replacement and dermal sheath, with the occassional skillwire
or bone lacing or such. He is invariably the heaviest armed and
armored character in the group. He always has firearms, stealth,
athletics, unarmed combat as skills. (With skills C.. not much
else.).

He always describes his characters as very stealthy, skilled guys;
they are maxed out for unramed combat. They are invariably male.

The remaining 1% I've never seen.. it might not exist.

And now for the funny part...
He's never, ever tried sneaking up on anyone, past anyone, or
otherwise using his (huge) stealth skill.

He always, invariably, uses firearms. He never uses unarmed combat
unless he has to. (Which means, someone attacks him using unarmed and
he must counterattack.).

His characters are often interesting, go through a lot of
development, has solid backgrounds and so on. He does not minmax, and
while he tries to get the best gear he can, I believe it's because he
thinks it's the gear that kind of guy would use, rather than to max
out his char.

Is he a munchkin? I'd say no, just a bit singleminded.

Another player has only made two characters, but the trend is clear
there, too...

Both were orcs, physads, and close combat monsters without stealth.
(The one was a boxer with killing hands, the other an axe murderer.).
They were both gangers, scum of the earth kind of guys.

He's more munchkin.. he's been mudding too much, IMHO.
--
Fade

And the Prince of Lies said:
"To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven."
-John Milton, Paradise Lost

From:	Mike Sapp <cynner29@******.NET>
Subject:	Re: Munchie scum (Was: Re: Players on the List)
Date:	Tue, 19 Aug 1997 22:37:30 -0400

Message no. 2 <snip>
>> How about everyone's gripes about characters with the same personaility,
>> no matter their back ground? Zwoot!
>
>One of my players has played about 6-10 different players. He also
>has great fun designing characters. He has probably hundreds stacked
>away somewhere.
>
>99% of them are as follows:
>Ex merc or otherwise militarily inclined.
>Martial arts experts.
>
<snip>
>His characters are often interesting, go through a lot of
>development, has solid backgrounds and so on. He does not minmax, and
>while he tries to get the best gear he can, I believe it's because he
>thinks it's the gear that kind of guy would use, rather than to max
>out his char.
>
>Is he a munchkin? I'd say no, just a bit singleminded.
>
>Another player has only made two characters, but the trend is clear
>there, too...
>
>Both were orcs, physads, and close combat monsters without stealth.
>(The one was a boxer with killing hands, the other an axe murderer.).
>They were both gangers, scum of the earth kind of guys.
>
>He's more munchkin.. he's been mudding too much, IMHO.
>
I agree that the first guy isn't a munchkin, but he's something even
worse. The unimaginative player, I once had a player that didn't need to
show up to the games as long as we had his char.sheet and dice, he'd played
the same character type/personality so often that we knew exactly what he'd
do.
The second guy sounds like he might have hope though if he's still new to
the game although he does show serious munchkin potential.

Here's my personal most hated munchkin variant, the untouchable orphan.
Players creating characters whose families are dead and who have no
friends. Sure they have a superficial background story, that runs close to
this:" My family died and I was left to fend for myself on the streets. I
turned to gangs and found I had a talent for killing people. Oh and I have
no friends. I killed my old gang, too 'cause they 'dissed me." These guys
are the elven bladesingers of shadowrun, they have tremendous skills with
no explanation other than I'm a natural and are invulenerable to attacks
and storylines that affect a character personally. I don't run modules but
rather rely on the backgrounds and personalities of the characters to build
plots. Players are intrigued by thier characters and plots that further
develop and explore these personalities and histories often turn out better
than anything published. Thankfully the cure is simple, install Doom or
current Doom substitute on your computer, watch the window and when
ROLLPlAYER arrives start the game and leave it at the opening screen.
They're sucked in and begin to come to game sessions just to play all the
shareware levels.
Jack: "I said do you want to sell your Beachcomber?"
U2C: "Hell, no. It's 3am, damn it."
Jack: "Then you might want to report it stolen."

Cynner

From:	Fade <runefo@***.UIO.NO>
Subject:	Re: Munchie scum (Was: Re: Players on the List)
Date:	Wed, 20 Aug 1997 05:01:25 +0000

Message no. 3 > >Both were orcs, physads, and close combat monsters without stealth.
> >(The one was a boxer with killing hands, the other an axe murderer.).
> >They were both gangers, scum of the earth kind of guys.
> >
> >He's more munchkin.. he's been mudding too much, IMHO.
> >
> I agree that the first guy isn't a munchkin, but he's something even
> worse. The unimaginative player, I once had a player that didn't need to
> show up to the games as long as we had his char.sheet and dice, he'd played
> the same character type/personality so often that we knew exactly what he'd
> do.

Sounds familiar... :/

> The second guy sounds like he might have hope though if he's still new to
> the game although he does show serious munchkin potential.

The problem is, he isn't new. But I'll wean him off it, no problem.

> Here's my personal most hated munchkin variant, the untouchable orphan.
> Players creating characters whose families are dead and who have no
> friends.
*snip*
> These guys
> are the elven bladesingers of shadowrun, they have tremendous skills with
> no explanation other than I'm a natural and are invulenerable to attacks
> and storylines that affect a character personally. I don't run modules but
> rather rely on the backgrounds and personalities of the characters to build
> plots.

This also sounds familiar. I try to base stuff off backgrounds. Then
I create huge, long campaigns that none of us really can see the end
of. (In one, one of the players (The unimaginative one) actually had
that orphan background bit.. he killed his father at 13, was picked
up by some organization he doesn't know about, and woke again at 25,
with amnesia in the period between 13 and 25. Golly for him.. but I
based my campaign on him. (The world was different.. magic didn't
exist openly, the place was a bit darker... a few other details.).
Anyway, when he got some alphaware installed the docs reported he had
some strange stuff in his head. Further investigations (helped by
Ares) showed that the stuff was identical to some advanced stuff
found in excavations on the moon... with unknown properties. Borrowed
the Wyrm from WW's Werewold the Apocalypse.. the Primeval Dragon out
to pave the world over, destroy nature. Its organization was behind
the installed cyber. It was also behind the advent of corporations,
cybertech and so on - all tools to make humanity less human, less
compassionate, greedier.. more in its own image. The organization was
also called "Fuchi". It had supplied it with the LosTech to advance
it to the front of technology. They found they had really been doing
its bidding; from then on things got real dark. I liked it, we had
real.. um.. dystopian fun. The campaign moved inexorably towards
everyone's unavoidable death.

> Players are intrigued by thier characters and plots that further
> develop and explore these personalities and histories often turn out better
> than anything published. Thankfully the cure is simple, install Doom or
> current Doom substitute on your computer, watch the window and when
> ROLLPlAYER arrives start the game and leave it at the opening screen.
> They're sucked in and begin to come to game sessions just to play all the
> shareware levels.
> Jack: "I said do you want to sell your Beachcomber?"
> U2C: "Hell, no. It's 3am, damn it."
> Jack: "Then you might want to report it stolen."

I do not get this reference..
(Okay, I get the doom bit, not the Beachcomber.. I'm not entirely
out of it... ).

--
Fade

And the Prince of Lies said:
"To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven."
-John Milton, Paradise Lost

From:	Mike Sapp <cynner29@******.NET>
Subject:	Re: Munchie scum (Was: Re: Players on the List)
Date:	Tue, 19 Aug 1997 23:50:25 -0400

Message no. 4 At 05:01 AM 8/20/97 +0000, you wrote:
<Big snip>
>> Players are intrigued by thier characters and plots that further
>> develop and explore these personalities and histories often turn out better
>> than anything published. Thankfully the cure is simple, install Doom or
>> current Doom substitute on your computer, watch the window and when
>> ROLLPlAYER arrives start the game and leave it at the opening screen.
>> They're sucked in and begin to come to game sessions just to play all the
>> shareware levels.
>> Jack: "I said do you want to sell your Beachcomber?"
>> U2C: "Hell, no. It's 3am, damn it."
>> Jack: "Then you might want to report it stolen."
>
>I do not get this reference..
>(Okay, I get the doom bit, not the Beachcomber.. I'm not entirely
>out of it... ).
>
Sorry about the last bit, I hit the wrong signature file. If you'd like to
know, however, it's just one of the nicer bits from a game with serious
roleplayers. The sammy, Jack, needed a vechile the beachcomber (a
hovercraft, I'm pretty sure of the name but can't check since I lent out
the rigger book) was all that was available. Jack just had a moral issue
with stealing someone's rec. vechile, it did have child size bikes mounted
on the roof after all, so he calls the guy and asks him if he'd like to
sell it. Of course he had to break in first to get the name off the
registration. Later the hovercraft actually proved to be a lead in on a
bigger storyline.

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