From: [f--h--e] at [amd.com]
Reply-To: [f--h--e] at [amd.com]
Errors-To: [flashlife request] at [amd.com]
Subject: Flashlife   V2 #11
To: [f--h--e] at [amd.com]

From: Carl Rigney (moderator) <[flashlife control] at [amd.com]>


Flashlife  Thu, 20 Jun, 1991   Volume 2 : Issue 11

Today's topics:

  READ THIS! (Moderator)
  D&D to Shadowrun conversion article wanted (Carl Rigney)
  Making combat deadlier ("Russell A Howard")
  Re: Making combat deadlier (Carl Rigney)
  Astral exosphere; blasting bug ("J.A.F.O.")
  unusual implant weaponry (Mary Kuhner)
  Re:  unusual implant weaponry (Carl Rigney)

----------------------------------------------------------------------


Date: Fri, 21 Jun 91 15:00:00 PDT
From: [flashlife request] at [amd.com] (Moderator)
Subject: READ THIS!

I'm leaving Advanced Micro Devices this Friday, June 21st, to pursue
more exciting and challenging opportunities at Kubota Pacific
Computers.  After that date I'll be [c d r] at [kpc.com] instead of [c d r] at [amd.com],
although the latter will forward mail to me.

However, its likely that I'll be running flashlife from netcom.com
instead of KPC, because KPC only has uunet as an MX Forwarder, not a
full Internet connection.  Please do not send any mail to flashlife or
flashlife-request until you hear from me that things are setup at the
new address.  If you want to reply to anything in this digest, go ahead
and mail to the original poster and cc me at [c d r] at [amd.com] or
[c d r] at [kpc.com], and I'll forward it manually to the list when I've got
it set up.

Don't be surprised or worried if there's a bit of a pause before the
next digest; I'm going to be very busy getting set up at the new company
before I can return my attention to Flashlife.

In the meantime, enjoy this one!

--
Carl Rigney, Moderator
[flashlife request] at [netcom.com] (Coming soon!)


--------------------------


Date: Thu, 20 Jun 91  1:00:00 PDT
From: [c d r] at [kpc.com] (Carl Rigney)
Subject: D&D to Shadowrun conversion article wanted

A few weeks ago someone posted an article to rec.games.frp on converting
D&D to Shadowrun, which I didn't save.  If anyone did save a copy could
you please mail it to me at either [c d r] at [kpc.com] or [c d r] at [amd.com]?

Thanks!

--
Carl Rigney
[c d r] at [kpc.com]


--------------------------


Date: Mon, 10 Jun 91 08:50:28 EST
From: [W--DE--R] at [MTUS5.bitnet]
subject: How much plastique does it take?

So you want to take out a building?  Do you have any experience with
explosives my fine chromed friend?  (rustle, rustle of paper)  No demo
skill, you say?  Hmm, 6 karma is a reasonable number to let you live
after using that much when all you had to do was ask a fixer or a merc
or go to a library and look up info.  Yes, 6 karma will do quite nicely
to save your skin from such overkill.

I don't have the charts with me right now, but there are several US
Army field manuals that talk about this.  The Morrow Project game
system also covers this very well.  It doesn't take a whole lot to do
the job.  Remember the old Brillcream commercial - "Just a dab will do
ya'"?  Same idea holds here.  100 kg. of top military grade plastique,
when set up right can easily take out a large-sized office building
like the one in DieHard.  From what the civil and geo engineering
majors here have said about plastique, it is all that the manuals say
it is and more.  A lot of how much damage is done depends on how you
set the charges and where you place them.  Still, 100 kg. is MORE than
enough to destroy most anything that could possibly be left in the
Redmond Barrens.  From my understanding, about six to ten kilos would
do PLENTY of damage.  Half a metric ton would wipe out a large portion
of the Barrens and do severe damage to much of what is left.  Of
course, the amount of damage it does in terms of the spread of damage
and the radius of destruction also depends heavily on how much you
think the Barrens still has large buildings intact and a few other
factors.  If you send me a description of the building and the building
in the surrounding areas, I can converse with a few people and get a
realistic damage estimate so that you can adjust the state of what is
left of the Barrens to reflect the extreme overkill.  If you'd like
references on explosives, I can also post those.

Things that make you go *BOOM*,
Wanderer


--------------------------


Date: Tue, 11 Jun 91 19:20:28 EDT
From: "Russell A Howard" <[rahst 7] at [unix.cis.pitt.edu]>
Subject: Making combat deadlier

Hi Carl,

  Two of my players and I sat down on Saturday night and decided we
weren't happy with Shadowrun's combat system.  We decided to change
some of the rules and make them more to our liking.  I know you might
find that hard to believe, huh :)  Anyway, we haven't had a lot of time
to playtest them yet so most are probably tenative at this point.
Anyway, I thought I would send you some of them and get your opinion on
them.

(1)  We didn't like the error about the die rolling in that it is just
as hard to roll a 6 as it is a 7.  This makes the statement about 7 as
a harder target number stupid, because it's not.  We decided that the
first die you roll would count for face value and everyone after that
would be a D6-1, with a 6 counting as a 5 + the reroll.  This seems to
fix that problem.

(2)  My players were dissatisfied about the way dice pools worked in
the game.  They complained about someone bieng able to dodge as many
shots as you wanted using your dodge pool dice until they were
expended.  They decided that a person should only be able to dodge one
attack between their actions.  Basically, it is an all or nothing
deal.  You pick the attack you want to try and dodge and roll all of
your dodge dice because you don't get to use them again until your
pools refresh your next action.
  They thought of this rule and I don't know how well it will work.
I feel that ths will give a numerically superior side too big of an
advantage.

(3)  Along with the above rule, you may use either your ddge or defense
pool once between your actions.  Example:  If, between your actions,
someone shoots at you and you dodge and then before you get another
action, someone comes up and engages you in melee, you cannot defend
against it.  Their reasoning is that combat is happening so fast that
you cannot dodge out of the way of multiple people shooting at you and
also avoid people swinging at you.
  Again, they made up this rule and I haven't firmly decided on it.  It
basically limits yourdefense and dodge pools because you can only use
one of them per action.

(4)  We decided that an average reaction for a shadowrunner is around
4.  We then took set base dodge numbers for the dodge rolls. 4 for
single attacks, 6 for auto attacks, and 8 for miniguns and such.  We
also increased or decreased these numbers based on the persons
reaction.  For a person with a reaction of 1-2, the numbers would be
5,7,9; 5-6 reaction would be 3,5,7; 7-8 reaction would be 2,4,6.  We
did this because one of the players wined about a troll with a reaction
of 6 bieng able to dodge as well as a samauri with a reaction of 8.

(5)  We have se a rule for autofire.  It enables you to make one roll
to hit and damage.  The problem is that if you miss all the bullets
miss.  The way we do it is say you are firing an average assault rifle
(4M3).  To get the damage that you will do, for each shot yo fire,
subtract from the staging of the weapon. If it is going to go to zero,
increase the wound rating by one and reset the staging.  Example:
Firebad, the Troll, is going to fire 4 shots into a corp goon.  His
weapon has a base damage of 4M3.  First, since it is autofire, boost
the power of the weapon by one to 5M3.  Then since he is firing 4
shots, the damage goes 5M2,5M1,5S3,5S2.  So the final damage for the
attack would be 5S2.  We haven't playtested this completely, either.

The reason for most of these rules was because my players were whining
about combat not seeming realistic.  Te were complaining about someone
who was able to dodge two shots from different people and also able to
defend against a melee attack before his next action came around.
Well, Carl, what do you think?  If their is anyone else you know of who
could give me and my players help with problems with these rules, could
you send a copy to them?  Also, you if you want, post these rules to
Flashlife so that others can kick them around.  Thanks...

	[Postscript: After playtesting the above rules Russ & his players
	 decided against using any of them, but perhaps others might find
	 them thought-provoking.  My comments follow in the next article.
	 --CDR]

--
Russ Howard
[rahst 7] at [unix.cis.pitt.edu]


--------------------------


Date: Tue, 11 Jun 91 21:08:08 PDT
From: [c d r] at [amd.com] (Carl Rigney)
Subject: Re: Making combat deadlier

I can't say I agree with many of those ideas, but of course, whatever
floats your boat is OK.  Have I sent you a recent copy of my house rules?

So I'm going to play devil's advocate here, but I'll also send them
along to flashlife for others to comment.

Russ Howard writes:
> (1)  We didn't like the error about the die rolling in that it
> is just as hard to roll a 6 as it is a 7.

Actually, I like the plateau there.  It means that a serious wound is
no worse than a moderate wound when firing at short range, but is at
medium range or longer.  And lots of other nice but subtle effect.  The
biggest drawback to changing it to 0-5 is that you've just made Target
10 a 1 in 36 instead of 1 in 12.  All their target numbers are now
badly skewed.

Plus I don't like subtracting from dice - it slows things down.

> (2)  My players were dissatisfied about the way dice pools
> worked in the game.  They complained about someone bieng able
> to dodge as many shots as you wanted using your dodge pool dice
> until they were expended.

So?  You wind up having to use all your dodge vs. one or two shots if
its going to be at all effective.  Are you seeing something different?

If they want to limit dodge, then dodge vs. attacker's skill instead of
weapon's power.  I like dodge, so I dodge vs. 4/5/6 for single shot,
auto-fire/explosion, mini-gun/dragon breath, respectively.

> I feel that ths will give a numerically superior side too big
> of an advantage.

A lot of your players' suggestions seem to be heavily slanted against
themselves if you usually run more opponents than PCs.

> (3)  Along with the above rule, you may use either your ddge or
> defense pool once between your actions.

I don't like that at all.  It's *not* overwhelming to use both.

> Their reasoning is that combat is happening so fast that you
> cannot dodge out of the way of multiple people shooting at you
> and also avoid people swinging at you.

Sounds bogus to me.  If they want that why don't they take low
Quickness and (un)armed combat skill?

> (4)  We decided that an average reaction for a shadowrunner is
> around 4.  We then took set base dodge numbers for the dodge
> rolls. 4 for single attacks, 6 for auto attacks, and 8 for
> miniguns and such.  We also increased or decreased these
> numbers based on the persons reaction.

Far too complicated for my tastes.  If you want reaction to affect
dodge then why not just use reaction instead of quickness for filling
the dodge pool?  It'll make Wireboys nearly impossible to hit unless
you change the dodge target to be vs. skill, but I rather like that.

> We did this because one of the players wined about a troll with
> a reaction of 6 bieng able to dodge as well as a samauri with a
> reaction of 8.

HUH?!  Dodge (in the rules) is based off Quickness.

Besides, Reaction does have a side-effect on dodge now - higher
reaction means you get more actions and thus more refreshes to your
dodge pool.

> If it is going to go to zero, increase the wound rating by one
> and reset the staging.  Example: Firebad, the Troll, is going
> to fire 4 shots into a corp goon.  His weapon has a base damage
> of 4M3.  First, since it is autofire, boost the power of the
> weapon by one to 5M3.  Then since he is firing 4 shots, the
> damage goes 5M2,5M1,5S3,5S2.  So the final damage for the
> attack would be 5S2.

This is utterly bizarre.  If I fire two shots my attack is easier to
resist (5M1 instead of 5M3)?  And if I fire one shot but call it
autofire I do 5M2 instead of 4M3.

Instead of all that strangeness, why not leave the power alone and
either 1) bump the wound level 1 when firing a burst of 3 rounds (to
4S3) or 2) say for each <staging> extra rounds bump the wound level 1,
so 4 rounds makes it 4S3 and 7 rounds makes it 4D3.  I don't like #2 at
all, but I use #1 and it seems to come out about the same as rolling
the dice separately - if they can stage the attack down from M to L
then 3 attacks would put them at three boxes, and likewise staging a S
down to M puts them at three boxes, with one-third as many dice
rolled.

> We haven't playtested this completely, either.

Yeah. :-)

> The reason for most of these rules was because my players were
> whining about combat not seeming realistic.

First get them to define realistic.  Do they have combat experience?
Or are they talking about cinematic realism?  In real combat everyone
blazes away at each other and 99+% of the rounds miss (that's without
smartgun links and not talking about snipers).

I'd suggest (modestly) taking a look at my house rules.  If what they
want is increased deadliness I'd suggest letting weapons stage up with
2 successes, and stage down the way they do now.

In fact, here's my posting to rec.games.frp where I discussed this a
few weeks ago:

Summary: 6 ways of speeding up combat

I suggest any of the following for speeding up combat, in increasing
order of severity.  I use the first three and am thinking about adding
the two after that.

Have all weapons stage up by 2, stage down the same as now.

Have armor give 1 auto-success plus its rating in dice.

Have burst fire increase wound one level but only roll once to hit
instead of for each bullet.  (I.e. a 5M3 burst becomes 5S3, not 6M3.)

Use Mary Kuhner's 2d6 location roll (recently posted on r.g.f, details
below).

Allow rolls 6 higher than needed target number to count as two
successes; rolls 12 higher as three successes, etc.

Increase all firearms (or perhaps just rifle) damage by one wound level
(really nasty, not recommended).

Mix and match to suit your pleasure.  Note that if you use *all* of
these firearms will be so deadly PCs will have to avoid firefights to
last very long at all - a desirable trait in my opinion.

The 2d6 location roll is from DMZ.  Mary's method may differ slightly
from mine in exact placement, but the ideas are similar.  Number the
boxes on the condition monitor from 1 to 10 (where 10 is a light wound)
then add boxes for dead, 0, 11, 12, with dead coming after 0.  When you
take a wound roll 2d6 for location and X off boxes counting towards
dead, 1 box for a light wound, 3 for moderate, 6 for serious, 10 for
deadly.  Skip over boxes that have already been X'ed.  When you X box 0
you fall unconscious, when dead is X'ed... you get the idea.  Mary uses
separate tracks for mental and physical, a nastier alternative is to
use one track and put a / for mental.  Adding a / or X to a box that
already has a / makes it a X.  This means that a mage can kill himself
from exhaustion, and fist-fights can eventually break things.  Karma
can't be spent on the location roll, since it it isn't a success
test.

As a separate issue, I've been toying with changing the +1, +2, +3
target penalties from being at 1,3,6 boxes on the condition monitor
to something else to make the death spiral less steep.
I've been thinking of 2,4,8 or 2,5,9 or 3,6,9.

--
Carl Rigney
[c d r] at [amd.com]

"If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, riddle them with bullets...."


--------------------------


Date: Thu, 13 Jun 91 17:33 GMT
From: "J.A.F.O." <[BSU 646] at [vaxc.bangor.ac.uk]>
Subject: Astral exosphere; blasting bug

More random musings from the welsh mountains...Has anyone thought what
would happen if a mage or dual astral being attempted to PHYSICALLY
leave earth's atmosphere? I'm working on a mini-campaign set on an L-5
habitat -shades of the villa Straylight!- so remembering the effects of
astral travel out of atmosphere I was wondering if physical effects
might be similar OR maybe a mage would be trapped in his skull unable
to venture out, cast spells etc.  How does THAT grab those with problem
mages? Just think no pesky shamen,mages dragons &/or Sirrushes!

With respect to the 500 kilo blast in the last Flashlife, do I miss my
guess or is grotesque misuse of explosives becoming an 'en vogue'
method of bug control? The party loony is currently suggesting a run
into the university to 'extract' a Chemistry Proff. and then off to and
agrochem factory for a tanker of nitrate based fertillizer! I think my
party is about to cross from shadowrunners to out and out terrorist!
-or as they put it 'warriors defending metahumanity against it's
enemies' I say terrorists-

	[I say terrorists too.  --CDR]

Let the slaughter begin ....?.......

'look how secure can Fort Lewis arsenal be?'
'tough but not impregnible....'
'Great! now how big is a Tac-nuke?'

	[Nuking cockroaches is an exercise in futility.
	 As for other insects, haven't your players ever seen
	 any 50's sci-fi flicks? :-)  --CDR]


--------------------------


Date: Thu, 13 Jun 91 20:53:13 -0700
From: Mary Kuhner <[m k kuhner] at [genetics.washington.edu]>
Subject: unusual implant weaponry

Any innovative ideas for implant weaponry out there?  My GM's
threatening not to run until I come up with something new (horrors!)

We've discussed flechettes made of frozen or crystallized
drugs/poisons/ pathogens, but delivery systems are a little tricky.
Would the high-pressure liquid sprays used in some modern vaccine guns
work at a range if the pressure were increased?

With softtech you might get a person to synthesize his own biotoxins--
never be without your poison supply!  Just be sure you're thoroughly
immune.

Could souping up the diapraghm muscles allow for high-velocity
spitting, like an archerfish?

Anemone-style stinging cells (yes, I'm a biologist) would also be fun,
but I think they may not work well out of water.  Nettles manage, but
transplanting plant tissue seems iffy....

We're especially interested in difficult-to-detect weaponry and other
cyberware.  Christmas presents for the assassin who has everything.

Mary Kuhner [m k kuhner] at [genetics.washington.edu]


--------------------------


Date: Sat, 15 Jun 91 00:19:02 PDT
From: [c d r] at [amd.com] (Carl Rigney)
Subject: Re:  unusual implant weaponry

How about things that work on allergies?  Or tiny stingers that detach
and burrow their way to the heart.  Actually, all they need to do is
reach the bloodstream and go along until they reach the heart, then
detonate.  Or release something that upsets the heart's rhythm.

No doubt you've already thought of electro-shock touches.  How about
Sonics?  In _Mask of Loki_ one of the characters has something about
credit-card sized that produces some incredible number of decibels in a
very small area at its edge, tightly focused.

Various resonating things might be useful, but I don't know how well
the human body resonates.  I've heard that ultra-low frequency sound (a
few hertz) can resonate with the abdominal cavity, causing severe
gastric awareness.

Something that shatters bones without harming the flesh?

Monowire flails with a separate thread from *each* finger would be
amusing, perhaps with a cyberlimb with pre-programmed routines to avoid
tangling or self-mutilation.

Weapons that use Razzle Dazzle to make themselves hard to see...

Strobes can be very disorienting - having one linked into one's own
cybereyes so they compensate could be very effective.  If you're wired
to move fast you could do all sorts of neat effects with strobes,
moving "invisibly", appearing in multiple places seemingly at the same
time, etc.

Attack forms based on a better understanding of human perception than
engineering permits today.

Squirting Butyl Mercaptan into an opponent's face shouldn't be
underestimated, either.  (Active ingredient in skunks.)

If Scent is linked strongly to memory, how about something that
triggers inapproriate memories or moods.  Attack the opponent's will to
fight rather than his physical ability.  Or instead of messing with his
sight, screw with his kinesthetic sense, balance, temperature sensors,
pain sensors, or what have you.  Assault the inner ear so he gets dizzy
and falls down, then kick him with steel-toed jackboots.

If popular models of cyberware have known flaws, some attacks might be
specially for them.  The most obvious is having a combat skillsoft
that's programmed to know about all the patterns of an older or weaker
skillsoft, so they walk right into your attack.  Or more subtly, your
skillsoft pushes their skillwires into realms where their bugs cause
unfortunate side-effects.

Putting their cybereyes into factory test pattern mode is always
entertaining.

Very loud sudden noises can be devestating, especially combined with
brilliant light - the SAS uses flashbangs to disorient terrorists for
just that reason.  You can no doubt thinks of lots of other sensory
attacks, most of which are likely to work better in close quarters
because the observation-decision-reaction loop is much shorter.

More extreme, you could turn one of your lungs into a carrier for
swarms of tiny microdrones that crawl into orifices and release nasty
chemicals / buzz distractingly / plant eggs - with some tag so they
don't do it to *you*, of course.

At the high end its good to have a one-of-a-kind weapon, because
*everyone* expects monowire in the pop-off thrumb these days.

You can still catch some people offguard with the monowire in the
big toe trick; combined with savate you can get some impressive range
on the strike.  But it has drawbacks of its own.

I don't know how hard it would be to induce a strong current over a
small area, but it might be entertaining to see the wireboy's reaction
when his metal implants start getting hot!  Or causing interference
with his internal circuits, especially on the low end.

And there's always clouds of choking gas or itching powder.

How about a tarbaby cyberlimb?  He throws a punch, you take it on the
arm and he's stuck, then you start up the whirring buzzsaw you had
implanted in your other arm...

Brandy had a suggestion too, but you already know her trick. :-)

--
Carl Rigney
[c d r] at [amd.com]

"...what's the point of sexy new technology if you can't find some
 way to pervert it?"  -- Marid, "A Fire in the Sun"


--------------------------

End of Flashlife
**************************