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Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: "Jason Carter, Nightstalker" <CARTER@***.EDU>
Subject: Running. And I'm not talking about Shadowrunning!
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1993 18:37:38 -0800
Alright. Here's how movement works in SRII.

Oh each of the character's actions, he may either walk or run. They character
is allowed to run only one action a turn.

On actions that the characters walks, they move Quickness meters.

If the character runs on an action, they move Quickness times 3 (2 if Dwarf
or Troll).

On the action that a character is running, he may use a Complex Action and roll
Athletics (Running) Dice against target number 4. Each Success increases the
characters Quickness by one for that action. NOTE: People without Athletics
can default if they want to try and get extra movement. Most likely the will
take the Quickness (6) test, although really wierd things like Firearms (10) are
legal.

Note that movement is not and action, and characters can act even when running.

Thus given a character with Quickness of 6, the maximum distance they can run
without the benefits of Athletics are:

Number of Actions Meters in Turn (x3/x2)
1 18(12)
2 24(18)
3 30(24)
4 36(30)
5 Character should be killed immediately.

>>I guess the running thing comes down to 'How realistic is it'.

>>Well if you think that someone with increased reactions should be able to run
>>faster than an olympic athelete with no running skill or improved muscles then
>>great, use the standard rules.

You missing an aspect of the Reflex Boosters if you think that they don't
increase the characters speed. Not only do they increase reaction speed, but
they also increase the speed of motor reflexes. That is why a given two people
otherwise equal, the wired one runs slightly faster. His motor reflexes are
faster.

===============================================================================
See Ya in Shadows, "Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer."
Jason J Carter -- Deep Throat, The X-Files
The Nightstalker Carter@***.EDU
Message no. 2
From: ANGLISS@****.PSU.EDU
Subject: Re: Running. And I'm not talking about Shadowrunning!
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1993 23:05:47 -0400
I had a really nice post reply to this ready...until my mailer said "cannot
create output file. Not enough disk space" or something like this. So here
we go again...

I disagree with the official rules on running and think that it is more
realistic to let a character/critter run every turn. The following is the
reason why.

Take the following, using Jason's format, if you allow running for a
Quickness 6, un-modified by Athletics individual:

Actions: Meters run in Turn:
1 1
8(12)
2 36(24)
3 54(36)
4 72(48)

Figure your normal olympian can run around 10m/sec(actual record is like 9.3
seconds for 100m dash, but I don't know exactly) for ease of calculations.
This turns into 30m per Combat turn. Using Jason's calculations from SRII,
this would make him exactly equal to the Sammy with Wired 2s(assuming human).
To me this seems _way_ off. Wired(or boosted or Synaptic accelerators) enhance
your motor reflexes, letting you do move your legs faster. This, combined
with the length of the legs, is what lets you run faster. Admittedly, the
strength of the muscles and their ability to overcome the legs' inertial
factors in, but that's why a Troll has only a Multiplier of two.

So, if you take the above numbers you have a maxed out sammy(Wired 3s
generally)able to get 4 actions and run about 24m/sec, or around 2.5 times the
speed of
the Olympian. This also puts your olympian at around the level of a sammy
with Wired 1s or Synaptic Accelerators 1, and natually too.

Finally, I remember a passage in one of the short stories in "Into the Shadows"
that mentioned the individual(Ghost maybe...) moving through a crowd at around
70 km/hr. This would put him at about the level of the 4 actions above, or
the person with Wired 3's, who can run 73.4km/hr.

This is all, of course, IMHO.

Brian

Further Reading

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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!