| From: | Patrick Goodman remo@***.net |
|---|---|
| Subject: | The Future (was Atmosphere Music) |
| Date: | Thu, 26 Aug 1999 20:08:37 -0500 |
recently, and I think it deserves a response. Hell, it's even more or
less on topic. The bulk of it at the end, anyway.
> > > And no, I wouldn't. I didn't really have an argumentative
> > > tone in this did I?
> >
> > Not really; it just seems that everything I say, you seem to have a
> > counter for.
>
> Apparently we are exact opposite personalities.
I don't know about *exact* opposites, but I think there are sufficient
differences to merit a note or two on the subject, and to avoid each
other's games.
> > It's, for the most part, not particularly musical. At least from
where
> > I sit.
>
> Well, I think it is. It's hard to make something sound so bad but still
be
> so good.
You act as though it accomplishes this feat. It doesn't, for the most
part.
> But that's not really why I think it fits more into SR than Bowie.
Believe it or not, I'd be interested in hearing why. Privately would
likely be better, but I'm not picky.
Note: Long quote block ahead. It's old, so I feel a need to make sure we
know where we were, conversation-wise.
> > And I prefer for there to be some kind of ray of hope. I prefer that
> > my players and their characters make some sort of difference, even a
> > small one, in the world, or at least in the lives of characters they
> > interact with. One of the better runs I ever sent the guys on was
paid
> > with a couple of beers and a favor to be repaid later. I don't *like*
> > games where it's all oppressive and all dismal and the corps are evil
> > monolithic entities and there's not a single goddamn light anywhere.
> > Play it dark and discordant and dystopian, and you might as well be
> > playing CYBERPUNK 2020 with a script right out of <yarf> Gibson's
books.
>
> Well, I'm all into the ray of light type deal, but I tend to find the
ray
> of light looks a lot brighter when you've just experienced 12 hours of
the
> most depressing drek ever invented.
Don't, from the above demi-rant, take it as a given that I'm a nice,
sweet, gentle GM who gives my players the world on a platter. I'm not;
just ask my players (some of whom are on this list). I just don't happen
to see the world of 2060 as quite the hell of, say, BLADE RUNNER, which
seems to be what you're seeing.
I also don't tend to use runners a corporate strike teams (mostly, anyway,
though I do occasionally do this). They're more like the Equalizer, at
least in my world. I loathe basic
"Meet-Johnson-hit-corp-target-get-shot-at-blow-shit-up-get-paid" kind of
runs, and try to make it more personal, to get the players involved.
Anyone can get shot at for money; the trick is to get them to go into a
small Azzie shell company outside of Seattle, on a moment's notice,
because an NPC promised them a six-pack and a favor to go rescue a
friend's kid sister. People in hell (like you describe) won't do that;
they're too goddamn worried about themselves. A world like you describe
isn't conducive to honor, in my opinion; it's just conducive to the
blacker side of human nature screwing humanity over.
> And it looks like we're up to this same
> Gibson argument again, so, instead of going over why he is a
> literary god and all, I'll just drop it.
Yeah, right. He can barely make a coherent sentence, and he doesn't do
basic research that would invalidate much of his fiction. I mean,
Rastafarians in space? I don't *think* so.
> > > Plus, have you ever listened to the lyrics? KMFDM are anarchists,
> > > Ministry hate the Church, and Trent hates himself. This is the sort
> > > of viewpoint I see the future going towards.
> >
> > You're saying all this like it's a good thing. I happen to think it's
> > not.
>
> Besides anarchy (which is a good thing from my anti-authoritarian
> viewpoint), none of these are good.
Then why are you praising it? And why do you want things to be like that?
> You don't actually think the world will
> be a happier place in the future, do you?
If, by that question, you are asking if I think the world is going to be
like one giant non-stop BRADY BUNCH re-run, where life is beautiful all
the time (with the exception of an easily-solved 22-minute crisis every
week), and the air smells of lilacs and the towels are all oh-so-fluffy:
Of course not. Give me a little fucking credit, okay?
Do I think it's going to be better, though? Better than you think it's
going to be, that's for damn sure. I think the world, in general, is in
better shape now than it was 61, 62 years ago; I think that, in general,
things will be all right, if not glorious, in 62 more.
> The history of everything starts
> at a peak and falls downward. I just think this trend will continue,
> and from reading SR's history, I think they agree with me.
It falls, and then it rises again. This is the cycle of nature, which is
not now and never has been a one-way journey. Things are on a downward
spiral now, but from the literature, it bottomed out in the 2030s and the
Night of Rage. Things seem to be climbing upward again as we enter the
2060s.
Your mileage, of course, may vary. There will be problems, new ones we
can't even imagine today, but in the final analysis, there will still be
rich people, there will still be poor people, the twain will still never
meet...and people will still be getting up every morning to go to work,
and things will be better for them than they were for their grandparents.
That's us, if you've lost track of all this. That's another constant of
our civilization and history that I don't see going away. I bitch about
my lifestyle, but I'm in good shape compared to where my granddad was when
*he* was 33.
> Out of curiosity, what are the predominant themes of your game?
People aren't driven wholly by greed. People aren't driven wholly by
being fundamentally good, or wholly by being fundamentally evil, but
mostly by being, fundamentally, people. We are prone to irrational
behaviour: We are prone to sudden and irrational bouts of cowardices,
just as we are prone to sudden and irrational bouts of nobility.
Generally, we fight, not for money, but for the well-being of those we
care about. And sometimes by trying to do the right thing in a world that
trains us to do the wrong thing.
Predominant themes? Humanity is, on the whole, a noble beast, and not a
base one. We have a lot of Robin Hoods, characters who fight to improve
things and not destroy them.
The world does not have to be hell, in spite of the best efforts of the
corps and the governments to make it so.
--
(>) Texas 2-Step
El Paso: Never surrender. Never forget. Never forgive.
