From:	shadowrn@*********.com (Ice Heart)
Subject:	PC's vs us (or normal people)
Date:	Tue Mar 12 13:40:01 2002

> > Look at yourself carefully and ask what you'd be capable of if you > >
>had magical training, special forces background, or a million > >
>dollars to spend at a place that can rebuild you to pretty near any > >
>metric you want. You would stack up pretty well as a PC then. > > Take
>away the money, the training, and such, and suddenly your PC > > is back
>to average joe.

>Sure, if I could have dermal sheathing, muscle replacements, >cybereyes,
>and all that stuff, not to mention a couple of years >experience of B&E and
>getting shot at, I could be a street sam, too. >Point is that right now,
>I'm more a Body 2, Strength 1 kind of guy >with much more theoretical
>knowledge than practical experience in just >about any field you care to
>name. And that is my argument: IMHO most >listmembers are not suitable as
>shadowrunners without a lot of >training and/or mods. But adding all that
>removes the point of this >discussion, while adding it and then removing it
>again just leaves us >back at the beginning...

> > Again, this is a matter more of life experience than some > >
>intangible PC requirement list. If tomorrow, your country were > >
>invaded and you had to run for the hills

>Hills? What are those? None of them around here :)

Don't get contrary with me or I'll start posting long replies. :)

> > and spend 10 years as a guerilla warrior, surviving off
> > the land, and fighting every day...your "build point" total would go
> > through the roof.

>Yep. But that doesn't change the fact that, when writing up stats for >me
>as I am now, I'd never get to 123 BPs, nor give me the skills >necessary to
>be a shadowrunner.

You, yourself, today, Tuesday March 12, 2002? Assuming you do in fact mean
this, why bother? Shadowrunning, such as it exists today, is a very
different animal, and none (or all) of us are in that league. Corporate
espionage today is not carried out with guns, or forced extractions, or
anything of the sort. It involves things as high tech as dataworms in the
networks of rival companies, as as low tech as having someone go over and
check the competition's prices. You are maybe capable of the first, and
infinitely capable of the second.

You on March 12 in 2060? You have lived through a very different time.
Your computer skill includes full knowledge of decking, since you grew up
when nothing else existed. Even without a datajack, you could do some
limited decking with a turtle system. That is more than many starting PCs
can do in some of my campaigns from first edition. If you suddenly had
absolutely no choice but to kill or be killed, you might find that Body 2 is
not a measure of what you cannot do. It is a measure of how much bruising
you will have when the adrenaline wears off. This conversation is causing
me to believe once again that point based char gen creates munchkinism in
the minds of even the best roleplayers. I contend that you, and every one
of us could survive and thrive as shadowrunners if given no choice. In part
because we know our limitations. How many PCs have died in your games
because the player thought Dermal Plating, Wired II, and a smartlink meant
they were invulnerable? They might have actually lived longer with a body
of 2 and some limited computer skill. They would have kept their head down,
and avoided gunfights in the first place.

In truth, all of us, as we are today, would be all but useless as contacts
or PCs in 2060. We would be little more than amazing historians. And some
of us would be pushing 90+ years of age. :P

> > I used to do something along the lines of what I oulined above for > >
>White Wolf games. I would pull out character sheets for Mortals, > > and
>set everyone down to make a copy of themself (in high school) > > as a
>character.

>My group did that as well a few years ago, for a rather short-lived >Mage
>campaign. But quite a bit of the character generation system had >to go out
>the window in order to makwe it work.

That is why you start with the rules for making mortal characters in WoD.
They can be found in numerous WW products. Hunters Hunted, Project
Twilight, Quick and the Dead, Kinfolk, Ascension's Right Hand, Halls of the
Arcanum, and so on.

Korishinzo
--all the will to be a runner, no reason as of yet ;)

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