| From: | Avenger <Avenger@*******.DEMON.CO.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: General Gaming. Evil Campaign Anyone? |
| Date: | Thu, 15 May 1997 01:49:05 +0100 |
<dlowe@****.COM> rambled on endlessly about General Gaming. Evil
Campaign Anyone?
>>>><snip details of evil acts>
>>>>
>
>The problem I have with "evil campaigns" is that they tend to turn into
>atrocity olympics, which IMHO gets old quick. Sometimes runners do some
>nasty things to NPC's and others, but I try to maintain some sort of moral
>compass in our games.
>
Very true. You can only have so many senseless acts of mass murder and
destruction before the next ones are old, passe and boring. Though I
prefer an amoral approach to the game, which is my opinion, more in
keeping with the genre. The "evil" game is something that gets tiring
within a couple of sessions. It just becomes a one upmanship for the
players to provide the most graphic "silly" act they can think of.
Terrorists are some of the most graphic and amusing opponents a runner
team can have, if they are using law enforcement characters, and there
are plenty of movie references for quick NPC creation and successive
events scheduling. But for players to indulge in it, would not be as
much fun, I don't personally think that characters can make good "evil
dudes". Aside from which, ultimately, in all respects, they will lose.
I don't entirely agree with the all runners are good guys attitude that
is occassionally aired, but evil games? Nah. I mean, Ok, there are
several hundred potential Freddy Krugers running around out there in
Shadowrun land, but Freddy is old hat, boring and completely unoriginal
these days. An evil campaign can be far more interesting if the "enemy"
is an evil personage, whom the runners either cross paths with, or are
directly involved with in some way. I've used this to good effect in
one campaign, that had my players spitting nails at me. But hell, they
enjoyed it. :) The modules Elven Fire and Dreamchipper were pretty
useful for using this idea in a scenario.
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