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Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Todd Montgomery <tmont@****.WVU.EDU>
Subject: Some replies
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 12:39:11 -0400
" Revolution Calling, Revolution Calling, Revolution Calling, you!"

Now that that is off my chest.

" Killing for Religion..Something I don't understand."

For those of you that do not remember the cloning discussions that
occurred a few months ago, this may not make too much sense.

How would you go about justifying dinos in SR? I would work something
out like genetic engineering. Who is to say that someone didn't do
just what they did in the movie. I know the cloning arguements will
start flying again. I don't want that, though. And the main point of
the cloning arguements was that brain cells may not be able to
develop. But the dinos' brain cells may not have to fully develop in
the cloning process. And then using a technigue that is being worked
on today, the brain cells could be regenerated. The way they are doing
this today is by taking fetal brain tissue which is still developing
and put that into the clone. ... OK so I am way off the movie,... just
a thought on the cloning concept that wasn't explored.... Another
angle on dinos in SR, what about a few awakened realtives of dinos.
Lately more and more scientist are going with the theory that dinos
have more in common with birds that reptiles (warm blooded and highly
active). What about some form of awakened birds that digressed into
dino forms instead of "awakening". Possible? Probable?

On the Grim II. They did do some changes that are very hard to track.
An example is the way watchers are summoned and how they can be used.
Very subtle. Now every TWO successes gives the watcher a force of ONE.
The services they can perform are basically unchanged, but they are a
bit more explained and seem to cover a larger area of usefullness. The
rest of the Grim II is very, very much like the Grim I. But you have
to remember the Insect Spirits and all. I thought the Grim II was
worth having.

-- Quiktek
a.k.a. Todd Montgomery
tmont@****.wvu.edu
tmont@***.wvu.edu
un032507@*******.wvnet.edu
Message no. 2
From: "David L. Hoff" <DLHOFF@****.WISC.EDU>
Subject: Some replies
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 1994 21:45:00 CDT
Concerning dead bodies as barriers:

Sounds pretty good to me. Or at least use them as additional armor vs an
attack. Bodies do tend to absorb a lot, although the type of weapon would
become a factor. For example, hiding behind a body from a shotgun blast would
work pretty well, as the pellets make lots of little holes, and would do lots
of tissue damage, but have little penatration (note, I am talking about shot,
not slugs). Trying to hide behind a body from a HMG round however, is pretty
useless.

Karma for killing civillians:

First of all, some people have been commenting as if karma is awarded for
individual kills (like, killing that bad guy is worth points, but killing the
wage slave is worth nothing). Just a reminder, Karma is awarded at the end of
a mission, based on the mission objectives and how well the players met those
objectives.

Now, on to the idea of killing innocents during a run. As someone else
pointed out, sometimes that unarmed wage slave just gets in the way at the
wrong time. Depending on the type of mission, you may just have to frag 'em,
as you don't have time to try anything more subtle. However, I don't think
that players should go out of there way to kill people that are not part of
the mission objectives.

Usually, when I design a run, or even when I run a module, I will come up with
some "penalty points". For example, if the run was supposed to be "Go in
quietly, steal this item, don't leave any traces", and the players satisfy
the first objective by stealing the item, but end up blowing up half the
facility and are featured on the 6pm news, then the may not get any karma for
the mission objectives (other karma points would still apply).


Characters with a moral code:

To tell the truth, my first set of players didn't want to do traditional
datasteals and such. They set up a detective agency of sorts, and hired out
to people that Lone Star wouldn't help. They were not afraid to kill people
though if the situation called for it. They just wouldn't go out of their way
to do it. Kind of an "in self defense" kind of thing.

I had a NPC assassin that had a code of sorts also (listen up Debbie). This
person would kill someone's grandma without blinking an eye, if she was the
person he was hired to kill. But he refused to use lethal force on anyone
other than his target. He would narcojet them, use stun bullets, etc. His
saying was "I have never killed anyone that I wasn't paid to kill." (By the
way, when the runners finally caught him, the captured him alive, since he
never actually tried to kill any of them)

*Whew*. Thats it for now. Feel free to make comments, suggestions, etc.

--Phoenix
dlhoff@****.wisc.edu
Message no. 3
From: Shadowdancer <BRIDDLE@*****.VINU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Some replies
Date: Thu, 3 Nov 1994 12:06:13 EST
Phoenix writes:
> Concerning dead bodies as barriers:
>
<deleted>
How would you handle the HMG (or other weapons)?

> Karma for killing civillians:
>
I was refering to going out of thier way to kill. If a wage slave or
sarariman gets in the way, boom.
>
> Characters with a moral code:
>
Lots of runners(the professionals) have some moral code, even if it is
the Robin Hood type.

Thanx to Phoeniz for his enlightenment.

Further Reading

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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!