From:	Cobra <wgallas@*****.FR>
Subject:	Re: FASA's On/Off Course?
Date:	Tue, 5 May 1998 17:24:17 +0200

>> I haven't enjoyed the storylines in recent years very much, to be honest.
>> I liked Bug City and most of the stuff before that, but what came after
>> was a bit so-so for my taste. (Note that I'm talking about source material
>> which advances the "universe storyline" here, not rulebooks.) Mike
>> Mulvihill seems to have definite ideas where things should go, but from
>> what I've seen of them they're not really going where I'd like them to.
>
>Wow, when I think about it, the storyline in general, I guess I would almost
>have to agree with you. You can almost feel when Mr. Mulhillvil IMO took
>control, as that was when the (the FASA Universe) started to "clean up" the
>mess(es) left from the previous conTROLLers ( :P). I personally think I
>would have been just fine with "Bug City" remaining for many years instead
of
>just a few.

I totally agree. What made SR really innovative was that magic was well
developed and managed. I tend to think that Mike doesn't like much those
magic threads and, IMO, it makes SR storyline a bit flat. If the dragon
heart trilogy was cool, it seems to be the end of the old SR line... When I
have a look at hte different storyline contributors, I see the best with
Nigel Findley. Perhaps SR has gone with his death...

>> For one thing I don't like the annual storylines, where we have "the year
>> of crime," "the year of the corps," and so on. Neither do I like
the idea
>> of having everything stepped up a notch to some kind of higher stakes
>> game, like it was supposed to after Dunkelzahn died.
>
>The "Year of ..." stuff doesn't bother me overall, just the degree of
massive
>change. We were taught (is 'Taught a good word for this?) that if a Megacorp
>should change, then it would have many visible, viable shakings of the World
>Economic Tree. That didn't happen readily in the case of Fuchi/Novatech. In
>fact, the BitB book does make things happen over a 2 year period for that,
>BUT, we as the players have been given no interaction with it or
comprehension
>of it until that book came out, which ends up with the "current timeline" in
>the FASA story suite.

I can see 2 kinds of "year of..." threads. The first doesn't have too much
implications. I think about carribean or underworld here. The other ones,
those which change drastically the world, are a bit too much IMO. The worst
of all is this corp war thread. I didn't read the novel but that seems a
bit stupid to me. In SR, megacorps aren't as powerful as in Cyberpunk. What
benefits could they gain from such a war... And when I hear about an
arcology shutdown, that makes me wonder a lot. What is it ? To me, it seems
more an **&* dungeon than anything else... :(

>> I guess that counts as an "off course" vote...
>
>One OFF

Two with mine.

- Cobra.