Message no. 1

From:	De Herdt Sven Sven.De.Herdt@***************.be
Subject:	Reflexes and initiative (was: Re: SRIII meets its steely doom.)
Date:	Thu, 16 Sep 1999 12:34:39 -0000

> Gurth[SMTP:gurth@******.nl] wrote:
>> I didn't lik it that much when we started. My character is a
Sammy with
>> Wired Reflexes 3, and the new system slowed him down a lot.

at first I didn't like the change either, but after trying it out it thought
it was an improvement to both the gaming system and to help create a certain
atmosphere in the shadowrun world.

>Not really, if you take multiple turns into account. Take two
characters,
>A with wired reflexes and B without. In SRII, their actions would
be
>staggered like this in one turn:

<snipping illustration>

>The net result is much the same, except that slower characters get
to act
>earlier on in the turn, and so can hope to contribute something to
the
>combat instead of sitting around waiting for the fast people to
kill
>everything. (That still happens, but now it's after the slow
characters
>have done something :)

This is exactly why I liked it, slow character are able to handle in the
first initiative pass. The atmosphere I try to set in the SR world is one
where the runners should keep low profile and they have to be careful about
what and how they do something.

Since most of the players have improved reflexes one way or another (be it
cyberware, bioware or magic), they didn't show much fear and especially
handled with much less caution when meeting corporate security. The runners
tended to act more like heroes instead of cautious people trying to survive
in a hostile world.
Of course the corp sec would be a threat when they were also boosted, but
most of the small corps wouldn't be able to pay for such a security force
and just had to hire "regular" but trained men.

With the changes in SR3 I don't have to make any unecessary changes any
more, since "regular" security officers can be a threat right now and they
should be handled with caution instead of with violence.

> --
> Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
>
I like the change from a GM's point of view (moehahaha).

--Sven :)