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Doresh posted:Though I can at least understand why they would hesitate, at least to a point. A more accurate hacker/decker/whatever wouldn't even have to be on the same continent as the rest of the party. He'd probably just interact with them through a rad drone. That is kind of why I've heard people suggest that deckers should just be relegated to an NPC or Contact instead. Because that'd avoid the thing of decking being a game within the game itself.
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# ? Feb 5, 2017 20:36 |
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# ? Apr 23, 2024 22:44 |
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Cooked Auto posted:That is kind of why I've heard people suggest that deckers should just be relegated to an NPC or Contact instead. Because that'd avoid the thing of decking being a game within the game itself. That's it: The drone is the player character. The decker is just the guy that does favors for you. Nuns with Guns posted:It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a new tabletop RPG setting must implement new nouns for every tired concept. I gotta write that down for later. Alien Rope Burn posted:Yeah, that came to mind. Of course, yeah, as Mastermind mentioned, you may as well make them individuals unless you're somehow using them in mooks in a really high-powered game. They can still be individuals and have an umbrella term referring to all of them. Like a pantheon of jerks.
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# ? Feb 5, 2017 20:47 |
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You just need to resist the urge to overcomplicate hacking. Ironically, this is actually what technomancers are good for, since their sprites can do things like jam a gun or kill an engine in just one roll.
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# ? Feb 5, 2017 20:47 |
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Doresh posted:Though I can at least understand why they would hesitate, at least to a point. A more accurate hacker/decker/whatever wouldn't even have to be on the same continent as the rest of the party. He'd probably just interact with them through a rad drone. There were a couple of fluff examples like that way back in 1E and the tie-in novels, even. One was blind in the real world, another was a paraplegic, and neither of 'em were going anywhere near the site of a run. Likewise, they mentioned that important buildings had riggers jacked in, manning the cameras and native drones. You could basically jack in from anywhere with a satellite uplink, care of Virtual Realities, but it was expensive, slowed you down, and hacking into the satellite was a risk by itself. Frankly though, the best rule they had in there turned a decking run into a handful of die rolls, with modifiers that benefited lean-running decks rather than the Alienware nightmares that the construction rules let you develop.
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# ? Feb 5, 2017 21:03 |
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Siivola posted:Smashing! Just about to say this. It is loving amazing to watch a Taido bout.
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# ? Feb 5, 2017 21:18 |
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The one I couldn't believe was real was Moo Gi Gong, the "just pick up whatever and hit people with it" martial art. It's apparently a weapon sub form of Hwa Rang Do famous for having 108 weapon training techniques.
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# ? Feb 5, 2017 21:31 |
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Doresh posted:That's it: The drone is the player character. The decker is just the guy that does favors for you. I probably would've just played a Rigger in that case. You can pretty much achieve the same thing there anyway.
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# ? Feb 5, 2017 22:18 |
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Considering the amount of Shadowrun chatter, I'm not sure I need to be doing a F&F of the game...
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# ? Feb 5, 2017 23:40 |
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Crasical posted:Considering the amount of Shadowrun chatter, I'm not sure I need to be doing a F&F of the game... Nah, do it. Clearly there's interest in SR discussion.
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# ? Feb 5, 2017 23:41 |
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Crasical posted:Considering the amount of Shadowrun chatter, I'm not sure I need to be doing a F&F of the game...
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# ? Feb 5, 2017 23:43 |
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Speleothing posted:On a completely different note, does anybody have the bit about a cyberpunk adware infecting a person's thoughts with penis enlargement and great deals? It was from a very early f&f or grogs.txt and I always think about it when people start talking about AR and cybernetics. Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:Please do, for those of us who want to read along with the discussion but know nothing of the game beyond "yes there are video games based on this." theironjef posted:Raven "Cool Swine" McCracken Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Feb 6, 2017 |
# ? Feb 5, 2017 23:46 |
I played the demo of Watch Dogs 2, and that seemed to split the difference between remote and in person hacking. As long as you're in the same building, you can hack through security cameras/your 2 drone buddies, but most important things required you to physically hack them. Plus you've got a magic wand phone for doxxing randoms and stealing their cash.
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# ? Feb 5, 2017 23:53 |
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Halloween Jack posted:There's a bit in Transmetropolitan where Spider's dreams get infected with advertising. This is presented as a totally normal thing in the setting and why most people (who aren't poor) go around wearing "mood filters" in public. Isn´t Transmetropolitan a vision of a dystopia as Shadowrun imagined at the end of the 90s would be instead of the 80s? Also by a better writer, clearly.
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 00:02 |
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Count Chocula posted:I played the demo of Watch Dogs 2, and that seemed to split the difference between remote and in person hacking. As long as you're in the same building, you can hack through security cameras/your 2 drone buddies, but most important things required you to physically hack them. Plus you've got a magic wand phone for doxxing randoms and stealing their cash. Yeah, or take a page out of Invisible Inc, the party has a 'hacker pool' which they can spend on hacking devices or disabling doors and such. Load it with different abilities to alter how the pool refreshes or takes down targets.
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 00:08 |
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Mr.Misfit posted:Isn´t Transmetropolitan a vision of a dystopia as Shadowrun imagined at the end of the 90s would be instead of the 80s? Also by a better writer, clearly. Transmetropolitan isn't even a dystopia, really. It's gotten weirder, but politics are always dirty and the world gets a little weirder every year as it is. It's a comedic political conspiracy thriller, except it's in the future.
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 00:14 |
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:By that time mankind will have mastered genetic engineering and humane micropigs will be all the rage. This is right before some kid in Milwaukee unleashes a super virus on the world that he accidentally created in his organic life replicator. Alien Rope Burn posted:Yeah, mostly all a "mini" pig means is "about the weight of an adult human". Won't fit in your shopping bag for very long. JackMann posted:There is an actual breed of pig that only gets 50-150 lbs (instead of 300-500 lbs), but yeah, you'll never get a pig that's going to stay small pet size. senrath posted:Well, yes, but those are called kunekune. Anyone who is selling a "micro" or "teacup" or "mini" pig is preying on ignorance. JackMann posted:Well, no. There are a few other breeds as well. The Gottingen, for example, averages around 80 lbs and is occasionally seen in the pet trade (though it's mostly sold to laboratories). There's also a variant of the Chinese pig in the US (EDIT: also mostly sold to laboratories) that averages around a hundred, and they're variously called mini or micro pigs. It's just that they're a lot less common in the pet trade than someone who wants to sell a regular piglet and claim it's a micro or mini pig (and then pretend they don't get over thirty pounds, which just ain't gonna happen with pigs).
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 01:41 |
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So, a few months back, I talked about the Metabarons rpg and someone asked me to take pictures. Since I don't want to damage my books, I've taken lovely cellphone picture instead. I've got the corebook (in english) and the Universe book (in french). The pictures are from the second book, as I gather it's much harder to find. The universe book is insane in the best way. It starts with an introduction by Jodorowsky where he calls the game devs "mutants" who plundered the universe contained in his head or something. Then we learn that the emperors of mankind are the Trans-Bourbon dynasty, founded by Louis XVII of France. Louis XVII, who was smuggled out of prison by immortal alchemist Nostradamus, was an hermaphrodite immortal, took over after the 6th World War in the 28th Century and ruled for almost 10 000 years as Rosemonde the 1st. It's great is what I'm saying.
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 01:45 |
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Ah yes, such famous historical noble houses as the Medicis, the Romanovs, Americans, and Women.
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 01:52 |
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thatbastardken posted:Ah yes, such famous historical noble houses as the Medicis, the Romanovs, Americans, and Women. Those are the Ante-Kenedi and the Retro-Windsors, I'll have you know. It's completely insane I told you.
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 01:58 |
wiegieman posted:Transmetropolitan isn't even a dystopia, really. It's gotten weirder, but politics are always dirty and the world gets a little weirder every year as it is. It's a comedic political conspiracy thriller, except it's in the future. The one decent gag in Kevin Smith's 'Bluntman & Chronic' was just calling Transmet 'Fear & Loathing in a Quasi-Dystopian Future'. It's like Futurama - the future is WEIRD, not good or bad. I also recently heard the Pogues song its named after. I asked for those Metabarons pics, and I'd got mixed up and thought it was all Moebius art. That art is a bit too generic, but 'not as good as Moebius' doesn't mean 'bad'. That gauntlet is amazing. Cassa posted:Yeah, or take a page out of Invisible Inc, the party has a 'hacker pool' which they can spend on hacking devices or disabling doors and such. Load it with different abilities to alter how the pool refreshes or takes down targets. Yeah have the AI be an equivalent of those Werewolf group Totems. One player controls them, no body but they do hacking & intel, maybe a drone if you want a physical body to interact with. Where's a good thread in Games to discuss which game has better hacking? I'm leaning towards Invisible Inc, since that's the focus of the game, but I haven't played much Watch Dogs. If Klei got the Shadowrun license I don't think anyone would complain.
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 02:01 |
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thatbastardken posted:Ah yes, such famous historical noble houses as the Medicis, the Romanovs, Americans, and Women. Looking at that, the American house is the Kennedys and the all-female portrait is of the Windsors, where the modern British royal family descends from. There's also a Hyper-Hapsburgs.
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 02:02 |
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Oh my god. Thank you for taking those photos, I can feel the batshit absurdity radiating off of them from here.
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 02:21 |
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For those who haven't seen it, Jodorowsky's Dune is a must-see and a good insight into the head of Metabaron/Incal creator Alejandro Jodorowsky. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBUjGFMhuDg
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 02:46 |
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Bieeardo posted:Oh my god. Thank you for taking those photos, I can feel the batshit absurdity radiating off of them from here. I'm almost thinking that the American House should be Bush-Kennedy, but I'm not sure when this RPG was published. If it was today, it would probably be Bush-Kennedy-Trump. MonsieurChoc posted:For those who haven't seen it, Jodorowsky's Dune is a must-see and a good insight into the head of Metabaron/Incal creator Alejandro Jodorowsky. Shorter version... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKjpH2qO8XY
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 02:49 |
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Ah, once again we discuss the Rogue Problem. Man, I need to update that more often.
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 02:50 |
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From left to right: "Is she wearing a lamp on her head?" "I'm wearing a lamp on my head!" "I'm hoping my giant tie will distract people from the lamp on her head."
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 03:23 |
MonsieurChoc posted:For those who haven't seen it, Jodorowsky's Dune is a must-see and a good insight into the head of Metabaron/Incal creator Alejandro Jodorowsky. Just drop acid and watch The Holy Mountain instead. Or maybe El Topo. http://366weirdmovies.com/the-holy-mountain-1973/ Those photos don't seem 'absurd' to me, they appear to show normal-ish people. Which isn't what I want in my Jodorowsky sci-fi. I want high strangeness, pure Moebius-like weirdness, trippy 70s New Wave sci-fi ideas. That purple cityscape is a good start.
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 03:30 |
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Count Chocula posted:Those photos don't seem 'absurd' to me, they appear to show normal-ish people. Which isn't what I want in my Jodorowsky sci-fi. I want high strangeness, pure Moebius-like weirdness, trippy 70s New Wave sci-fi ideas. That purple cityscape is a good start. I don't know I about laughed when I saw Space America. But yeah, they needed someone who could draw like Moebius or at least Enki Bilal.
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 03:33 |
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The thing to remember about The Incal and The Metabarons is Jodorowky's Dune script was the size of a phone book and he kept it. Those two stories (and probably the others linked to them) are him turning that script into completed media. They also start out really strong and then just go weird with things slipping out of right field in the end portion. He works with good artists, though.
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 03:46 |
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Robindaybird posted:I found Shadowrun's tabletop rules to be way too unwieldy and there were massive issues like deckers having an almost different game running and the inevitable arguments over tone (Mirror Shades vs Pink Mohawk) But in my experience, it was a cancer that really metastasized in the fan community. Shadowrun was the first game I posted a ton about online, on the old Dumpshock forums. There were people, there and in other places, who were all like "If you have to fire your gun, the run is hosed." Shadowrun grognards are pretty much the same as D&D grognards: like, if you want to play D&D as heroic fantasy and not as an exercise in paranoia where you poke everything with a 10' pole, you're a dumb idiot baby who didn't earn his fun. Shadowrun grognards loudly and proudly declare that the game is meant to be played like Sneakers in mirrorshades and nothing else, despite all the aforementioned heavy weapons. rumble in the bunghole posted:I have no idea what the appeal of shadowrun is. The setting is a mess of stuff that doesn't work together and everyone hates the system. Is cyberpunk 2020 that bad? Comparing the two, Shadowrun is more clearly mission-oriented, and that's a huge selling point. I'm not really sure what the classes in CP2020 are supposed to do together. It seems to require the GM to put in the same amount of work to put a campaign together as in a game like Vampire, whereas in Shadowrun you just put a team together and do espionage missions for cash, like in any dungeoncrawl-oriented game. Crasical posted:Relevant fact the first: I’m 27 years old. I was born in late 1989. gourdcaptain posted:I'd love it if Shadowrun could come up with a new kind of enemy that wasn't bug spirits/shedim/nanobots possessing you. hyphz posted:From my brief experience running 4e, it's because of Hollywood hacking. Anything can be hacked at will, you don't have to hope or wait for a security hole, and only hackers themselves have the money or skills to run decent security software.
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 03:47 |
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I've heard shadowrun anarchy adressed a alot of these problems, is that true?
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 04:04 |
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Count Chocula posted:watch The Holy Mountain
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 04:21 |
quote:Shadowrun was the first game I posted a ton about online, on the old Dumpshock forums. There were people, there and in other places, who were all like "If you have to fire your gun, the run is hosed." I dunno if the SR game is like that, but that's how you're meant to play Invisible Inc, and even though Watch Dogs 2 and Deus Ex let you go in guns blazing, I get the sense from the community that no-kill runs are encouraged, or at least some kind of ideal (especially in Deus Ex). So I can see playing a tabletop cyberpunk game with that mindset- but you gotta let the players know! Also it always struck me as silly that the flagship cyberpunk game had D&D races in it, but as established my opinions are kinda dumb. My favorite cyberpunk setting in this thread is the CyberPapacy. I LOVE The Incal. It's soooooooooooooooooo gorgeous. But that's Moebius' doing.
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 04:29 |
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Neopie posted:I've heard shadowrun anarchy adressed a alot of these problems, is that true? Yes. Also, no. If your problem is that you liked the general setting of urban fantasy-oid cyberpunk but wanted a narrative friendly ruleset that still used the basic ideas of Everything Is Piles of D6 and Let's Keep Gear Neat, then it's a nice, simple system. But the main way it did this is by completely ignoring most of the rules complications and bring everything down to simple skill tests with small bonuses and penalties for gear/no gear/using gear wrong/etc. It didn't improve on the Shadowrun rules so much as pull out a lot of the subsystems and nearly start over.
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 04:41 |
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thelazyblank posted:Yes. Also, no. The narrative mechanics are basically the new vogue of cooperative storytelling, what with being able to spend tokens to take control of the story, and the person currently talking getting to also run NPCs and villains and what have you, but yeah, it doesn't appear to actually make for a fast game. You're still rolling a handful of D6s against a handful of D6s for everything.
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 05:29 |
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Halloween Jack posted:I think a good bit of it must have just been that Shadowrun had better advertising, and the Elves & Dwarves stuff was appealing. I got into Shadowrun through franchise novels I bought at Waldenbooks; there weren't any CP2020 novels with cool covers on the shelves. And I quickly found people to play with in high school. Once I was into Shadowrun, there wasn't much reason to get into CP2020. In general in CP2020 you're usually running around as troubleshooters, it's presumed, but it doesn't have a focused design, it's true. A lot of the roles lead themselves to specific setups - like, corporate, rockerboy, or media work as the center of a campaign, but not as much as a random element thrown in. I never really dug the idea of having elves and dwarves thrown in - even at a young age, I was like "wouldn't it be more like our mythology?" But then, I was in two Shadowrun games for a single session each. In the first game, my character met up with another PC for a job, then ended up catching a driveby bullet aimed at that PC and was hospitalized. I didn't play in that game again. The second dropped me into a middle of a run they were doing and I never actually saw another PC, much less got involved in their mission. I just wandered around aimlessly for a session. I didn't play in that game again. CP2020 I joined a session and got on a mission doing work for the mafia as a solo in a campaign that lasted two years. This is probably a good chunk of what led me to being a CP2020 fan at the time. That, and even today not understanding the general appeal of "suddenly, dwarves!" I really did like the short blurb in GURPS Fantasy for a fantasy / cyberpunk crossover that's really just magic-punk - you replace the corporations with powerful guilds, cybernetics are replaced with magical enhancements or getting monster or golem parts implanted, etc. That kind of thing feels a lot more natural than the bolts-still-showing nature of Shadowrun in my eyes.
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 05:37 |
There's an amazing Discworld book, Going Postal, that somehow does cyberpunk with semaphore towers.
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 05:57 |
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(Deleting. Missed the point.)
lifg fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Feb 6, 2017 |
# ? Feb 6, 2017 06:07 |
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Well lifg, you were right insofar as the 80s-90s stock vision of cyberpunk was "We'll all be corporate drones in overcrowded sprawling megacities" when what we actually got is "we're all underemployed and most of us live in sprawling stupidly-planned suburbs."Alien Rope Burn posted:I never really dug the idea of having elves and dwarves thrown in - even at a young age, I was like "wouldn't it be more like our mythology?" But then, I was in two Shadowrun games for a single session each. In the first game, my character met up with another PC for a job, then ended up catching a driveby bullet aimed at that PC and was hospitalized. I didn't play in that game again. The second dropped me into a middle of a run they were doing and I never actually saw another PC, much less got involved in their mission. I just wandered around aimlessly for a session. I didn't play in that game again. CP2020 I joined a session and got on a mission doing work for the mafia as a solo in a campaign that lasted two years. This is probably a good chunk of what led me to being a CP2020 fan at the time. That, and even today not understanding the general appeal of "suddenly, dwarves!" From a purely gamey point of view, races and magic give you more player options and a separate axis to develop your character along. (And from a purely game design point of view, this creates more problems than it solves.) I always looked as CP2020 as being a little old-fashioned and clunky compared to Shadowrun, and I figured "Well I guess you'd just want to become a full-conversion borg as soon as you could afford it, that's max level." Looking back, I'm sure that's a dumb assumption to make, but there wasn't as much info on the Internet when I was a teenager. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Feb 6, 2017 |
# ? Feb 6, 2017 06:13 |
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# ? Apr 23, 2024 22:44 |
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Count Chocula posted:I dunno if the SR game is like that
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# ? Feb 6, 2017 06:20 |