| From: | Marizhavashti Kali xenya@********.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | [OT] KODT & Ivy K. Ryan |
| Date: | Tue, 06 Jul 1999 18:20:10 -0700 |
>
> Hey, that _is_ interesting... I, and plenty of others, had in-depth
> discussions with her about the use of house rules vs. using the rules as
> printed, which should be in the logs I mentioned above. (Which, BTW, is
> why she's one of the two people who get a special dedication in the
> Plastic Warriors book The Player's Guide to Shadowrun House Rules :)
> [http://shadowrun.html.com/plasticwarriors/srbooks/tpgtshr.html]
Cool supplement.
House rules and Ivy:
* No essence or BI cost for non-mages (seriously) with cyber or bioware
was an infamous (yet failed) experiment. She felt mages were too
powerful and had to be "balanced."
* Advanced Cyberware with base .2 essence cost.
* No essence cost breaks for mages.
Many and multifarious attempts to make Shadowrun more "realistic"
(realism vs. genre convention was always a quest in Ivy's games. Realism
was the holy grail and genre conventions were a Sin Against The Goddess.
Honestly, this happened in everything from Vampire to AD&D, depending
upon mood).
Odd bits not related to Shadowrun:
* Change Vampires in V:tM so all have "turn to mist," "wolf and bat
form," and "mind control" as default powers. Also added "No
reflection"
and "Can't cross running water."
* Try to add house rules to *any* magical setting so her pet setting
would, by default, have more powerful *apprentices* than the typical
experienced practitioner in any other world. My favorite was Mage, where
everyone who came in could use "Vulgar Magic" without gaining Paradox.
Or Shadowrun, where they received L Drain for all spells which could be
reduced to nothing with one success on the Drain Resistance test.
* Tied into the above - every game played went from whatever it was to
"crossover with pet fantasy setting (home-brewed) because she was bored
with the game." So, you're playing Cyberpunk and suddenly *wham*
characters from a high-powered fantasy milieu show up and start showing
up the PCs. Space 1889, Battletech, Shadowrun, Vampire, Champions, IST,
etc, etc, etc. You name it, it probably happened there.
* Decided DC Heroes was sexist, because a female character (Cheetah) had
"Single" on the character card. Of course, Single had the same effect on
both male and female characters, but why confuse righteous fury with
facts. Da man is trying to keep us all down!
* Vampire (and WW) was sexist because all the villains were female.
Seriously. She took my "I don't care to talk about this anymore" as
"agreeing with her." This was wrong, it was just a stupid argument.
* Allowed her husband's characters to gleefully and often break
character creation rules. I really like the time she decided my
characters couldn't possibly be as experienced as her husband's and gave
him more Karma to spend.
There was the occasional attempt to "create an RPG that would sweep the
market because it's so fat, cracklin' realistic." Ah, well. None were,
really, but a few were fun.
I think that gaming with Ivy did improve my GMing skills, I learned the
following:
* Don't let NPCs overshadow PCs.
* Don't mix genres needlessly.
* Don't create house rules to benefit my characters and hose everyone
else's.
* Don't try to entrance the players with how kewl and powerful and
badass my NPCs are.
* Don't be stubborn on every point. Sometimes the GM *is* wrong.
Mind you, it's sort of like reading "www.webpagesthatsuck.com,"; or
"learning good GMing through watching bad GMing," but there you go.
In all fairness, there were good moments. Many good moments. It's just
that the bad moments were very, very bad.
--
Deird'Re M. Brooks | xenya@********.com | cam#9309026
Listowner: Unofficial Fading Suns mailing list
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