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Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

From: IronRaven cyberraven@********.net
Subject: Getting Nasty to Your Players (WAS: Re: The Friggin'
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 15:48:38 -0400
At 12.11 08-31-99 -0700, you wrote:
>I disagree. Being disturbed by a gruesome activity can be enlightening
and has its place in SR. This isn't a game for little kids.

Err....
Where is the age rating on the core rules, in that case. I'm willing to
bet I can answer your question without even looking at my book- there isn't
one.
Other than WW's WOD and a handful of others, most RPGs are targeted for
the junior high crowd, who (no offense guys, this is just IMO) ARE still
pretty damn young.

>Again, I disagree. Adult issues have their place in SR. This isn't a
happy-go->lucky universe where everyone skips around singing all day.
People die during

Reading the older books, there was nothing in it that said that every day
was bomb-your-buddy day. Betrayal and dishonor used to be bad things. (I
dread SR4- they will probably be calling it a good thing.) Most of us would
rather play a game where honor still existed, and that the runners were
(largely) the "good guys" (most of the time). You know- no killing little
kids, no raping nuns, no tossing satchel charges into crowds, that kindof
thing.

>world that feels real. Does no one get mugged, raped, beaten, or killed
in your >campaign? All of these are potential "danger zones" for some
people, but are

Yes, but we display it as the aberant behavior that it is. People die
quite frequently in my games, and not all of them NPCs (I average a dead PC
about once every five or six missions), but killing the innocent or
needlessly is a very bad thing, with conciquences, like fewer and fewer
people want to deal with you. Beating- we've delivered them by the score-
just ask the guy who had his leg torn off by the Troll sam last weekend.
Muggings- we don't commit them, they are for a lesser class of criminals,
and make you look unproffessional.
And although the "system" doesn't always work, runners and mercs usually
do. You can be the "uber baddass", and cause the cops to dive for cover,
have parents call thier kids in, and have wee babes and old women weep, by
doing nothing more than walking down the street. In which case, if you
want to be "accurate", the last thing you ever do will be to reach for the
gununder your pillow when Lone Star blows your door and a team of people
with BIG guns who take your existance very personally run in.
OR, you can be a man of honor, have people who remember you and come to
you later for jobs or have a favor to be paid. The gangers respect you
becuase with a four man team you took out thirty of them, but allowed them
to live when you could have killed them. Your names are known to the
Oyabun, the Don and local corps as a team that can get the job done quietly
and with a minimum of mayham, and treat you as a pro.
I've made an observation, which may or may not be accurate, and may or may
not apply to many of the people here, but it has often appeared to me that
the people who make the claim of "(insert grossly antisocial act of choice)
makes the game more realistic" are younger/more immature and thier games
more prone to less realistic PCs.




Kevin Dole, aka CyberRaven, aka IronRaven, aka Steel Tengu
http://members.xoom.com/iron_raven/
"Once again, we have spat in the face of Death and his second cousin,
Dismemberment."
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in
your philosophy."

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