From:	Seth Scott <seth@***.UOREGON.EDU>
Subject:	re: rigger lethargy
Date:	Wed, 27 Jan 93 10:40:58 -0800

As the Minotaur saith of riggers, so has it come to pass in my campaign.
When my roommate decided to play a rigger in my game, he asked me what a
rigger was. My reply was, "Well....." I hadn't GMed a rigger before, and
the campaign in which I played before hadn't included any riggers either!

So, I was faced with the same problem: what does a rigger do, other than
"wax his rotors and wait"? I put it to my roommate to think of a solution,
and his solution was this:

Faydor, a dwarf, modified a drone (I'll dig up which model, if anyone wants
to know) to _carry him_ into the same combat situations that the team
went into. He armored it heavily, armed it (after some suggestions from
me, of course, as to what might be more firepower than he would want to
have used against him, too :) ), and now he uses it to stay with the team.
Granted, he can't go just anywhere, and he draws much of the heavy opposition
with his armor, but he's included.

This process has been a puzzle for me, as a GM. Primus: include the players,
all of them, and let there be fun for all. Secundus: (and corollary) GAME
BALANCE. Yes, I know that some of you folks just don't believe in Seth's
Imp of Game Balance, but I swear to you that I've seen it, and it is real.
I am constantly challenged to make the combats a challenge for the team, since
none of the players are nearly as heavily-armored as the rigger is. My
solutions have been to make some encounters inaccessible to the drone (slopes,
swamp, ocean, tunnels, etc), to make some encounters just not possible with
an armored machine present (the more civilized 'negotiations'), and to weight
some combats with vehicle-threatening magic (of which there are plenty of
exampes). I made repairs reasonably cost-effective through the character's
contacts,
and voila-- a rigger that I can include effectively in my campaign.

Shoot away at my ideas, but kindly, of course :) I could use any other ideas
that folks have turned up. Hope that this helps, Steve.

Seth, aka Woodsy, swamped and mid-term