From: [f--h--e] at [amd.com] Reply-To: [f--h--e] at [amd.com] Errors-To: [flashlife control] at [amd.com] Subject: Flashlife V2 #10 To: [f--h--e] at [amd.com] From: Carl Rigney (moderator) <[flashlife control] at [amd.com]> Flashlife Sun, 9 Jun, 1991 Volume 2 : Issue 10 Today's topics: Re Things That Go BOOM In The Night (A Lump Of Putty) Threatening People... (Christine O'Connor) INTIMIDATION (Earthworm) Victimised characters (No More Mr Nice Guy) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 30 May 91 0:55:12 BST From: A Lump Of Putty <[R J Hay] at [loughborough.ac.uk]> Subject: Re Things That Go BOOM In The Night (Just For A Little Light Entertainment;) >E.g. just how big a mess does 100kg of top whack military plastique Do >in a built up area when set up right? This guy thinks he's got problems! Extract From A Recent Run; PC Hello Evro, we want to buy something. Evro (A Fixer) What do you want? PC Some C-12 with a radio detonator. Evro No problem, how much C-12 PC Well, we're going to blow up a building, only none of us has done this sort of thing before, so we thought you could tell us how much we needed. Evro Ah, well in that case I'd suggest half a metric ton. PC Okay. Well it was in Redmond so no-one's complaining (no-one that maters anyway), it just means you need armour plated umbrellas if you're going out, and the Earth will hit the Sun a few years earlier than expected ! The Award For Extreme Stupidity In The Course Of Duty goes to the character who rigged the explosives. The Ref thought 6 Karma points was a fair exchange for her life ! P.S.:You're not fooling anyone Paul (Adams) with your "Elven Physical Adept" everyone knows Hawk was yet another Lynch (the human merc.) persona. Let's see, after the faked death scene coming up that'll mean he's `died' 4 times ! Goodbye for now :- ROB "Criminal Tendancies" HAY -------------------------- Date: Thu, 30 May 91 13:53:43 BST From: Christine O'Connor <[D T M Gladding] at [loughborough.ac.uk]> Subject: Threatening People... Forwarded message: From [D T M Gladding] at [lut] Thu May 30 13:48 BST 1991 From: Earthworm <[D T M Gladding] at [lut]> Subject: INTIMIDATION To: cgdtmg Date: Thu, 30 May 91 13:47:54 BST X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL0 (LUT)] INTIMIDATION: The target of the intimidating attempt makes a willpower roll, with the target number of this being determined by the type of gun, and a number of situational modifiers. 2 Successes: Attempt Failed miserably. 1 Success: Attempt Semi ok - target is worried, but will carry on as usual if the gun is no longer pointed at him. 0 Sucess: Target is intimidated, and will cooperate fully in order to save his miserable neck Fumble: Target panics and either runs, or if that isn't possible, attacks. BASE RATINGS FOR WEAPON TYPES: Hold out pistol 3 Light Pistol 4 Heavy Pistol/Machine Pistol 6 Assault Rifle/SMG/Shotgun/Sporting Rifle 8 LMG/MMG/Sniper Rifle 10 HMG/Assault Cannon/Missile Launcher/Minigun <5> 12 or any Vehicle Mounted Weapon MODIFIERS (GENERAL) Wielder / Target Body 6+ +/- 1 Wielder / Target Body 1 -/+ 1 Weilder / Target wounded & Bleeding +/- 1 Wielder used weapon <1> + 1 Wielder / Target Cybered <2> +/- 1 Weapon Silenced <3> + 1 Weapon Modified <4> + 1 Reputation of Wielder +/- Varies Weilder has Backup + 1 SPECIAL MODIFIERS These are modifications based upon the public's view of the weapon in use, for instance in all the simsenses, the heros gun everyone down with their Ingram Smartguns, therefore they must be lethal. (Gee, I saw Neil the Ork Barbarian kill 40 guys with one of those - I'm not gonna argue with this one pointed at my head...) Alternativly, this modifier could work the other way - all the baddies use AK-97's, and they never scratch the heros - so there no need to worry about the one that this guy is pointing at your face... NOTES <1> - Depends on how the weapon was used. If the target has just seen all his friends massacred with it, and the muzzel is still gently smoking, it's gonna have an adverse effect. On the other hand, if it bounced off his armour a moment agoi he ain't panicking about it as much. <2> - The target knows if he has any effective cyberware. The only way he's going to know about it in the other guy is if is obvious (Dermal III), or the guy has demonstrated it (Pulled out his guy in a blur - he must be wired) <3> - Only in situations where a silencer would be useful, in a quiet kill and escape. <4> - Is the modification obvious ? Only really if it causes a loss in concealability. (Sash's Pistol will do well here....) <5> - If the target know's anything about a minigun, he won't worry unless the barrels are spinning. EXAMPLES Ok - Lynch pulls an H&K HK227 on Susy, and tells her to drop to the floor or he'll shot. SMG - Base number 8. It's an H&K, and loads of security guards get blown away whilst using them - so it's useless. (-1) But lynch has body 6, and is obviously cybered up (+1, +1) However, Susy thinks of him as a friend, so his 'rep' is going to work against him here. (-1) Final Target number is 9 Susy rolls, 8, 4, 3, 3, 5, 2, and so drops to the floor immediately, sobbing. Lynch then holsters his H&K, and tells her it was a joke. She doesn't like this, and gets out her Browning Ultra Power. This is a Heavy Pistol - Base of 6. Lynchs body and Cyberware work against this, bringing it down to a 4. Susy is however known for her bad temper, and a Browning is generally regarded as a good handgun - a +2 overall, so the final target number is 6. Lynch rolls a 1, 1, 8, 3, 2, 7, and laughs at her. Any comments or Queries to: [d t m gladding] at [uk.ac.lut] -------------------------- Date: Mon, 3 Jun 91 21:45:04 BST From: No More Mr Nice Guy <[P J Adam] at [loughborough.ac.uk]> Subject: Victimised characters Howdy out there. On an unrelated note, Marlowe wrote in about a PC who got dumped on by every GM at once. Since it was my PC (he's currently on a colony ship to Mars, since that's the only escape route open to him) I'd like to throw in my own comments. The problem started when MCT tried to kill me and very nearly succeded. They stopped to gloat and I got lucky - a friend pulled me out. Then an elven assassin (guess who? I should have killed him in Lochlann) came after me, at the same time as the corp I used to work for (and was a reservist for) started an investigation to check for suspect loyalty. I managed to badly incriminate myself from an observer's point of view, then the Easter holiday intervened before I could get into work and account for my actions. Then a consequence of a nine-month-old run came together with a trigger-happy police captain who wanted his ass covered, and I got busted, and things continued to go downhill. Now I'm not complaining about any one of these - they were all fair consequences of Lynch's actions, with one exception. (A dispute over a legal technicality - the GM who originally ran it cleared it, another threw it out, and that caused a lot of my problems.) But every move I made to get away from one problem made another worse, and I was flailing around blindly in a fog of disinformation. Realistic, yes, but not playable and extremely annoying when a favourite character gets kicked out of Seattle with virtually no chance to deal with the situation. The worst thing was there was, early on, a way out but the character wouldn't even have seen it, let alone taken it, so I didn't. After that it was leave the planet or die. I wasted a lot of time, effort and newyen trying to disappear, only to be told that it was hopeless and I should just give in and accept fate. Result? A favourite character gets the boot, I get extremely annoyed, and several GMs get to congratulate themselves on taking Lynch out. I've been told several times that "we're not out to get you", but when two GMs are publicly working your character over and a third is busy in the background, what is a simple player meant to think? I still don't know why it happened. As a consequences run? Why so carefully co-ordinated? As a feeder for a run? On a three-year round trip to Mars, this had better be some run. To kill off a character? Why take three months to do it? A mage could have taken Lynch easily and quickly if that was the intention. As a lesson to others? Why so thorough? The most infuriating thing was the attitude of one GM, which was that "if you do not follow this prescribed path, one of the dozens of corps now baying for your blood will kill you for sure." This was despite some serious hard work in disappearing, building new IDs and completely changing both a image and appearance. If Lone Star and corps are that good, how does anyone survive their first shadowrun? Come to think of it, as far as the character is concerned there aren't that many people gunning for him- MCT are still angry, but as far as he knows he hasn't been connected to anything on any other corps (and he hasn't done that much to that many, oddly enough...) The GMs involved simply say it's all much bigger than I know...great. My problem is that from a player's point of view it looks, bluntly, as if several GMs decided my character was going to either die or go to Mars and that nothing I did would affect matters. What they tell me is something else - this is the way it's played out so far. Now if they have any comments on this, I'd like to hear them, because I haven't seen any other character get this kind of stomping and I'd hate to think that my friends were doing this on purpose. If the idea was to get Lynch to retire, he was working on that but they made it impossible. If the idea was to kill him, they still have plenty of chances. If they wanted him out of town for good, they succeeded. But it would have saved me a lot of grief if they'd simply asked me. Paul Adam. "You mean program carriers are illegal? The guys in Chiba never said anything about that when he gave me that discount!" "Okay, we'll try conversation with extreme prejudice." From:- P.J.Adam%[uk ac loughborough] at [net.cs.relay] -------------------------- End of Flashlife **************************