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Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: losthalo brucekitty@*****.com
Subject: Starting Resources
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 06:32:23 -0700 (PDT)
I'm currently in the process of rewriting the Priorities system, and
the prices for SR gear for a campaign (and other things, basically I'm
working on all my SR rule pet peeves at once :). I'm lowering the
prices for a heckuva lot of cyber and other gear, since I find it
unlikely most criminals who accumulate 165,000 nuyen's worth of money,
materiel and favors, wouldn't retire from getting shot at, rather than
blow it on wired 1 and jump back in for another roll at the craps
table.

That said, one problem among several is riggers. I can either severely
limit what sorts of vehicles they can get access to (I'm using a cap of
about 200,000 for starting nuyen, but doubt vehicle prices will change
much) or remove vehicles from the price list for starting char's and
just use some system for points to buy them similar to Spell Points.

(Rules for Used Vehicles might not be a bad thing for the game (not to
mention some simple Payment-Plan rules for character's that but cars
the way real people do: with a loan. Hmm...)

Any ideas, folks? I'm rewriting the initiative system, borrowing ideas
from several sets of House Rules online, etc., so strange ideas are
welcome. :)

Bruce

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Message no. 2
From: Fanguad fanguad@****.rit.edu
Subject: Starting Resources
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 09:36:58 -0400
> I'm currently in the process of rewriting the Priorities system, and
> the prices for SR gear for a campaign (and other things, basically I'm
> working on all my SR rule pet peeves at once :). I'm lowering the
> prices for a heckuva lot of cyber and other gear, since I find it
> unlikely most criminals who accumulate 165,000 nuyen's worth of money,
> materiel and favors, wouldn't retire from getting shot at, rather than
> blow it on wired 1 and jump back in for another roll at the craps
> table.
>
> That said, one problem among several is riggers. I can either severely
> limit what sorts of vehicles they can get access to (I'm using a cap of
> about 200,000 for starting nuyen, but doubt vehicle prices will change
> much) or remove vehicles from the price list for starting char's and
> just use some system for points to buy them similar to Spell Points.

> Bruce

As far as the expensive stuff goes - most shadowrunners probably did
not "save up and buy" most of their equipment. Stealing vehicles, cyber-
goodies as payments for runs, etc.
The starting money takes all this into account by giving the
shadowrunners an (otherwise) unreasonable amount of money to buy
equipment with.

-- Fanguad

---------------------------------

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Message no. 3
From: Douglas Browne dejaffa@*********.net
Subject: Starting Resources
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 10:12:12 -0400
> As far as the expensive stuff goes - most shadowrunners probably did
> not "save up and buy" most of their equipment. Stealing vehicles, cyber-
> goodies as payments for runs, etc.
> The starting money takes all this into account by giving the
> shadowrunners an (otherwise) unreasonable amount of money to buy
> equipment with.

Agreed. In addition, the prices for vehicles are for new,
legitimately owned vehicles. You could come up with what used and/or
"slightly hot" vehicles would cost, and have those numbers be significantly
lower.
This also allows PC's to discover things about their vehicles as the
campaign goes on -- some friends of mine bought a black SUV at a police
auction, only to find, after they'd bought it, that (a) the passenger side
window wouldn't open, due to the vehicle not having been put back together
properly, and (b) the engine was a bit more powerful than they had thought
it was. Can you say plot hooks? I knew you could... :-)

Tee-Hee
Message no. 4
From: Augustus shadowrun@********.net
Subject: Starting Resources
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 09:06:25 -0700
From: losthalo <brucekitty@*****.com>
> I'm currently in the process of rewriting the Priorities system, and
> the prices for SR gear for a campaign (and other things, basically I'm
> working on all my SR rule pet peeves at once :). I'm lowering the
> prices for a heckuva lot of cyber and other gear, since I find it
> unlikely most criminals who accumulate 165,000 nuyen's worth of money,
> materiel and favors, wouldn't retire from getting shot at, rather than
> blow it on wired 1 and jump back in for another roll at the craps
> table.

Hmm... I never really had a problem with runners making a whack of dough and
still going back out on the streets... part of the excitement and thrill of
life... a break in the dolldrums... or in general... life would be boring as
hell otherwise.

Hence why people like crime lords, big corporation owners, even
celebrities... continue to keep on working instead of just retiring and
living off the proceeds of what they've done. ie: $20,000,000 today should
be enough for a life of luxury for the rest of your life (just sitting in
the bank... it would generate $1.1M per year in interest)

But... what I have had a problem with was the cost of cyberware in general.

Ya think about it... the corporations would have been making this stuff for
the milirary and law enforcement organizations.... not criminals...

But we've seen many a time where the thread comes up and people go on about
how they can't beleive that Corp X would spend even 25,000¥ on a guard... or
that anybody in the military that would have Wired Reflexes Level 1 or
better and a few other 'toys' would have to be in some elite special ops
force.

Thats my thought... the price of cyberware (and software and such) are
almost out of the reach of those its being made for... whereas after a good
dozen or so runs, the criminals are all decked out in hundreds of thousands
of dollars worth of gear.

Aug

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