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 #9 To: [f--h--e] at [amd.com] From: Carl Rigney (moderator) <[flashlife control] at [amd.com]> Flashlife Tue, 28 May, 1991 Volume 2 : Issue 9 Today's topics: Extra successes (Mary Kuhner) Re: Extra successes (Carl Rigney) Pretty trolls (Laurence Brothers) Draconic interpretations [SPOILER] (Laurence Brothers) Things that go BOOM in the night. (BSU646) Fun with C-4 (Carl Rigney) Re: A few mundane thoughts from 1930 (Philip Marlowe) Various comments (Adam) Life without mages (P.J. Adam) Magic in Cyberpunk (Andrew Durston) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 May 91 10:43:44 -0700 From: Mary Kuhner <[m k kuhner] at [genetics.washington.edu]> Subject: Extra successes A radical mechanics suggestion: It's an unfortunate consequence of the Shadowrun basic mechanic that someone with only a few dice can never do very well, and can't do some tasks at all (i.e. resist that drug which requires 3 successes on a Body roll--good luck if you have Body 2!) We tend to give ordinary security guards Firearms skill of 3 or 4, but a sufficiently tough opponent can simply dodge/soak their best efforts, and a smartlink doesn't even help--it's the number of dice that is limiting. Jon Yamato came up with the idea of having a die which scored target number + 6 count as 2 successes, target number + 12 as 3 successes, and so forth. This sounds icky and complicated, but for target numbers below 6 it is very simple--reroll your 6's, and if the new roll makes your target number it is an extra success. We immediately found out that this is too nasty for the weapon skill 8 or 9 people with smartlinked firearms--they get an abhorrent number of successes. But on consideration, the problem here is that most of these characters *shouldn't* have firearms 8; they're not conceived of as being outstandingly good, but lower skill just wasn't having the desired effect so we pushed them up to 8. We scaled a lot of PC weapon skills down 2-3 dice and were quite pleased with the results. It's probably also too nasty for spells, if you use anything close to the vanilla spell rules; and for decking, if you use the huge FASA pools. But for ordinary skill rolls--resistance tests, lockpicking, Etiquette, and so forth--it seems to improve playability a lot. I get tired of realizing I don't need to roll the dice because there is no way I can get enough successes to matter. Mary Kuhner [m k kuhner] at [genetics.washington.edu] -------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 May 91 18:05:52 PDT From: [c d r] at [amd.com] (Carl Rigney) Subject: Re: Extra successes [Mary suggests counting an extra success for each 6 higher than the target number.] We thought about something like that, and about making multiples of the target numbers equal successes, which is too nasty to use. I'd think Mary's suggestion might slow things down a touch since you sometimes have to reroll when you wouldn't have had to before, but players like to see how high their rolls go anyway, even now when it doesn't make a difference. The open-endedness of it is likely to appeal to players. It does mean that with sufficient luck you can do anything, now, but it also does away with the problem that people with Firearms less than 5 can't kill anyone with a pistol now (although you'd fixed that anyway earlier). I think magic and decking should use the same system - its not *that* big an effect, it only adds 18.6% to the number of successes. With a 20 die pool it adds less than 2 successes vs. target 4, half a success vs. target 6. Provides the illusion of hope rather nicely. I like it! -- Carl Rigney -------------------------- Date: Tue, 28 May 91 18:04:41 -0400 From: [q--as--r] at [puddle.bellcore.com] (Laurence Brothers) Subject: Pretty trolls So how do trolls without dermal deposition look? Ask any of them who get the funds for full-body somatic surgery.... I have an NPC troll ("Asmodeus", leader of the elite "Demons" shadowrun team) intended to be my most obnoxiously blatant enforcer. He's a physical adept with max troll physical stats, killing hands (oh, by the way, I interpret the killing hands ability to look pretty much like the glowing fight scenes from The Last Dragon), martial-arts rank 9, and heightened reaction. But the most annoying thing about him from the point of view of a PC is that he has none of those crusty troll dermal depositions. In fact, being short for a troll (only about 2.5m), he actually cuts a very attractive figure, being built kind of like Captain Marvel (ie an isoceles triangle, point downward). Considering the natural charisma of all thin people who weigh more than 200 kilos, Asmodeus' presence just naturally tends to make any non-troll street samurai in the same room look insignificant, and insignificance is worse than death for street samurai.... Oh, he does have a couple of disadvantages: he's totally psychotic, and he's also blind (organic brain dysfunction), forcing him to use his astral perception adept ability *all* the time -- now you understand why he's psychotic.... Anyhow, a troll who has the funds can look pretty much like a very large human. Trolls who care about such things have to spend pretty much all their time dieting and training to keep their figures in human proportion (square-cube laws and such like make it hard), but it can be done. -- Laurence R. Brothers ([q--as--r] at [bellcore.com]) "There is no memory with less satisfaction in it than the memory of some temptation we resisted." -- James Branch Cabell -------------------------- Date: Tue, 28 May 91 18:18:47 -0400 From: [q--as--r] at [puddle.bellcore.com] (Laurence Brothers) Subject: Draconic interpretations [SPOILER] Several modules imply that dragons have the natural ability to shape-change into humans, but this is nowhere clearly stated that I can find. Personally, I'd play them that way anyhow, because of the entertainment value, but I'd like to know if this is a ruling which has been stated somewhere. If so, can they shape-change into any form? Only into human form? Only into some specific human form? I haven't seen a dragon yet who actually had the "shape-change" spell listed. Obviously, "mask" isn't good enough, as it is kind of hard to make it through doors that way. [Its never been explicitly said but I'd take it as a given. All it takes is critter or shapechange spell, after all. --CDR] While I'm on the subject of dragons, they seem to have been treated inconsistently thoughout. For example, my favorite saurian, Perianwyr (Mercurial) was probably the first to appear in a module, and despite having been around in the last age of magic, he has a very limited spell list, with no conjuring or enchanting skill. Nevertheless Perianwyr is depicted (within the module) as being exceedingly powerful. On the other hand, Geyswain (Bottled Demon) is supposed to be (relatively speaking), an incompetent youngster, and he has approximately twice as many spells, some to double Perianwyr's average skill level of 6 (mana bolt 12 - ye gods!) not to mention being a competent conjurer and enchanter. Continuing on more or less the same subject, any clues about how to consider the initiation level of some magic-using monster like a dragon? As far as I'm concerned, they are initiates at level (Magic-5), though they don't have to waste time going on astral quests and so forth, being naturally magical or dual-natured. -- Laurence R. Brothers [q--as--r] at [bellcore.com] "Mundus Vult Decipi" -- James Branch Cabell -------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 May 91 11:43 GMT From: <[BSU 646] at [vaxc.bangor.ac.uk]> Subject: Things that go BOOM in the night. As a result of a past run involving the party detonating a flamboyantly huge explosive device in the office of their least favourite person I suddenly find myself in the position of needing a slightly more comprehensive and for that matter Comprehensible set of rules for the use and abuse of Explosives, has anyone got one? E.g just how big a mess does 100kg of top whack military plastique DO in a built up area when set up right? The thing that got me was that the runners were never meant to USE the damn stuff! the idea was for one of the NPC's who is maniac of the first order to suggest they just blow the dude up and to hell with the extraction and for this to stimulate the party to show some brains and come up with a sensible idea and do it stealthily, extract the target and melt away... BUT OH NO they went along with it! What do you do on a day like that? There are days like this and then there's just ME. J.A.F.O [Never let the PCs get their hands on anything you're not prepared to see them use. --CDR] -------------------------- From: [c d r] at [amd.com] (Carl Rigney) Subject: Fun with C-4 Keywords: shadowrun, demolitions, explosives, ranger's handbook [Since someone brought up the topic of explosives, I thought I'd include these article I also posted to rec.games.frp so it would get into the flashlife morgue for future reference.] I pulled my copy of the Ranger Handbook (ST 21-75-2) off the shelf (every GM should have one of these lovely pocketfuls-o-fun) and looked it up. C-4 is 1.34x as powerful as TNT; I'll give the formulas so you can figure things for yourself with whatever new joys 2050 military tech has come up with. The "minimum safe distance for personnel in the open" for demolitions is 77 meters times the cube root of the weight of the TNT in kilos. For C-4 its 85 meters times the cube root of the weight of C-4 in kilos. So for a 200kg C-4 explosion we're talking 500 meters. Now, that's just for people, and I assume it includes a healthy safety margin. Buildings aren't going to be leveled all the way out. Incidentally, cutting down a foot-thick tree takes 3/8 kg of C-4 if you do it the smart way; nearly 4x as much if you just tie it next to the trunk. Now for the reinforced concrete wall. The handbook doesn't give an explicit case for blowing a hole in the ceiling, probably because Rangers aren't supposed to do anything quite that stupid. But for a wall the charge of TNT in pounds (divide by 3 for C-4 in Kg) is given by the formula P=KCR^3, where R is breaching radius in feet (thickness), K is the material factor, and C is the Tamping Factor. The number of charges used is N=W/(2R) where W is the width of the breach. C ranges from 1 to 3.6 depending on how well tamped the explosive is; 2.0 is pretty easy. For a ceiling tamping's not easy, so let's call it 3.6. K ranges from 0.07 for earth, up to 1.76 for small holes in reinforced concrete. The values for reinforced concrete are: R K 1' or less 1.76 1'-3' 0.96 3'-5' 0.80 5'-7' 0.63 7' or more 0.54 So if it's 1 foot of reinforced concrete the charge size is (1.76*3.6*1^3)/3 = 2kg/charge, and for a 4' wide breach (no trolls in the party) you need 4/(2*1) = 2 charges. So 4kg of C4 will do it. If it's 2' of reinforced concrete you'll need (0.96*3.6*2^3)/3 = 9kg in a single charge. Assuming (with typical Shadowrun logic) that C-12 is 3x as good as C-4 :-) then adjust to taste. Note that this only blasts away the concrete; it doesn't cut the reinforcing steel, but depending on what mesh was used in creating the building you may be able to squeeze or torch your ways through that easily enough, although possibly not before someone comes to find out what the hell that incredibly loud noise is. Note that if you can place the charges *inside* the concrete by inserting them through the pipe you can get a much better C-factor, like 1.0. So that would drop your charge size to a little over a kilo for 1' of concrete, 2.5kg for 2', 45kg for 6'. Of course, in *my* 2040 the military has keyed resonating explosives that analyze the vibrations of the previous explosions and time their detonation to maximize the effect. There are also smart-charges that explain their operation the way medkits do. Ignore both; the PCs don't need these kind of toys. Moving on to mechanics, I find FASA's demolitions skill absurd. "Simple" demolitions like blowing holes in walls should be straightforward. For someone with demolitions skill, I'd make the target number equal to the number of charges required, regardless of size, because the tricky part is the fusing. Setup for simple demo takes 1 minute per 1kg block, obviously more if they have to be propped up, less if it's prewired in demo carrysacks. Tamping increases the time quite a bit. You can do things hastily, dividing the time it takes by the penalty you accept to your target number. If you have enough explosives and make your success test, the wall is breached; the more successes, the cleaner the results. If the test fails, it could range from a hangfire to simply not breaching. People with very high demolitions skills can probably get by with less explosive simply because generous margins are built into the rule-of-thumb numbers given here. Properly destroying things like roads, bridges, or (gack!) airfields take MUCH longer, because you have to a lot of work preparing the structure, you can't just tie 6 sticks of dynamite to the railroad track and blow up the bridge, no matter what you see in the movies. In your example, if your demo engineer has all the time she wants she needs to roll skill 4 vs. target 2, although I might up it to a 4 on the basis that its a ceiling and suchlike. In other words, a routine task. Commercial demolition is somewhat different: 30kg was used to bring down a 10-story hotel by putting it in the critical places and weakening load-bearing structures, etc. That takes MUCH longer, but it also comes down safely by toppling in on itself. Disclaimer: I'm not a combat engineer so if anyone out there has real experience in these matters I'd love to be corrected. Of course, don't try this stuff at home. :-) -- Carl Rigney [c d r] at [amd.com] "5 grams of this explosive will level this building." "How much you got?" "A truckload." -------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 May 91 12:55:56 BST From: Philip Marlowe <[A J Beckett] at [loughborough.ac.uk]> Subject: Re: A few mundane thoughts from 1930 Do I have anything to say, you ask yourselves. Not really, I answer. I roleplay to have fun. Obvious you might think. I say not, many people I see roleplay aren't enjoying themselves, because they don't treat it as a game. I read the unending discussion about cybers and mages, 'who should be more/less powerful than now?', and think: not much from snailpace mundanes in here( normal people I call them) so I thought I'd stick my oar in. If a group of characters are too powerful for any measly division of panzers to take out, you outwit them instead (remember, not a few characters have more smarts than the person playing them). However, this can get out of hand,especially when it comes to 'consequences'. Its not fun when your favourite character gets dumped on and can't affect it, its bad GM'ing (I've GM'ed like this, it don't make you no friends). I'll give you a recent example: Lynch (a street sam) gets a homicidal assassin onto him as an encounter. So far so fair. In the same month MCT's tried to kill him in a most nasty manner, as a result he's got a couple of corps watching his every move. Also, LoneStar want him for questioning, a victims lawyers want blood/money/similar ,and its a sad state of affairs when the I.R.S. are the least of your worries. Not surprisingly, that character in his present form didn't last too long. My point is, if your going to play consequences( and they should be) then play them at the time or not at all. Here at L'boro I've noticed a distressing 'whose character's life shall we destroy this week' attitude taken by many refs, which results in something nasty coming along from every run a characters ever been on, over the space of a week! Another small point. The Combat System isn't. It is a system designed to get a result, not to simulate combat. I'm not really happy with it, so I don't play combat oriented characters. As far as I'm concerned, any attempt to make combat more realistic is on a sticky wicket to start with, especially anything that slows the system down even more. Its atmosphere you want from a system, not accountancy. I find it quite depressing that someone can spend DAYS designing a character a not have any character background except that which makes it even more powerful; ie: my tribe sent me here so I can justify having a 10K income a month, 'cos they're payin'. O.K., fair enough I cry as a thousand little red laser dots appear on my forehead, many characters have quite reasonable reasons for doing what they do, the loonier the better I always say. However, there are limits. When a character has been generated by (dare I say it) powergaming, I think the game loses something. For goodness sake, if I had a penny for every time someones told me entire points,attributes, skills,equipment build up of their new character, gosh, I'd have about 25 pennys. In game terms, I don't want to know how many dice you've got in needlework, are you any good at it? Yea oder Nay?! If you roleplay well it doesnt matter how good your character is. Use of my grey matter has earnt me twice as much Karma as anything else,the most effective players I've seen rarely look at their character sheet, their skills are that unimportant to them. So then. I've ranted for a while and probably not said much. Who cares? Remember its only a game, have fun and don't try to outdo each other on skills. May your dice always roll up, except against me. Marlowe -------------------------- Date: Sat, 25 May 91 19:48:41 -0700 From: [ez 000270] at [pollux.ucdavis.edu] (Adam) Subject: Various comments 1) It is difficult to impossible to combine a silencer and a gas vent in any way, shape, or form. A gas vent works by directly venting propellant gasses to counter recoil. A silencer works by slowing down these same gases until they are subsonic and then releasing them. You cannot combine these two functions. They directly oppose each other. If you want a recoillesssilent weapon then try gyrostabilization. The reason why the Army dropped recoilless weapons in the sixties was the very large dust signatures/heat blast from the venting. 2) The 'Society for Free Astral Space' or whatever that was suggested in an earlier posting that goes around judging spell locks and quickened spells isn't necessary because the Shadowrun rules explicitly state: "Nature is an infinite pool of energy that human magic cannot exhaust." (Paraphrased, since I don't have my rulebook with me. Check it out in the magic section) 3) A nasty anti-magic drug was developed in my campaign called 'Marsica'. It is basically a series of self-replicating nanites (i.e. nanotechnological machines) that go through the subjects nervous system and, well ... does horrible things. It also prevents riggers and deckers from ever being able to use the interface ever again ... or their extremities, for that matter. Why not just use cyanide? Well, a mage can just use Prophylaxix D Toxin to quash that, but try using his spell against highly technological constructs (Tech Rating 14). 4) We have trashed the Shadowrun combat system and instead use Phoenix Command, with a few conversions, because to my view part of the cyberpunk feel is gritty realism which includes all the gritty, horrible ways you can die. (Send me email if you want to see our modifications to fit in Phoenix Command with Shadowrun.) If you want something that 'feels like a fight' then play AD&D .... 5) Related to 4) above, there are all sorts of small arms that will be employed in the next 60 years, rather than 'light pistol, pistol, heavy pistol, shotgun, SMG, assault rifle, etc'. Using Phoenix Command we can now model future small-arms systems that will be in use like flechette guns, lasers, gauss rifles, ramjet munitions, micromissiles, and other, more esoteric weapons. All of the weapons mentioned above are technically feasible within the next 5 to 30 years, with working prototypes available now (but that's a different discussion) Anyway, all this is my .05 nuyen worth. -Adam -------------------------- Date: Wed, 15 May 91 17:36:37 BST From: [P J Adam] at [loughborough.ac.uk] Subject: Life without mages Hi there. Talking to other players on campus about a run I did without mages (see previous letter) brought some interesting results. The most alarming was that we were stupid not to have brought a mage or shamam with us. Now, as a character, Hawk (my elven adept merc) has little experience with mages - they don't get deployed with the grunts. As a player, I accepted the GM call that if we didn't have mages, we wouldn't have to deal with them. And remember that only 1% of the population is magical - and how many of those shadowrun, compared to those who earn a high wage and good living just for putting up wards and Watchers on a corp site? The problem with mages is there isn't anything they can't do. Fight? Easy. Mage vs mage tricky, but the mundanes go down like ninepins. Drive? Get a City Spirit doing Guard and you don't have a problem. Deck? If it's in the mainframe it's in someone's head and a smart mage can mindprobe it out. We have a mage called Jordan who fits my conception of a mage's job - he's good at astral cover, good at healing and detection, and screams and cowers during firefights. My 'combat shaman' really wants to be a samurai and is heading rapidly for burnout - she just dropped in alpha-grade Wired-II - but is still a useful backup. My three biggest complaints are:- Increase Reaction and Combat Sense - for initiates with quickening and (for CS) the money for a fetish focus, they become extremely powerful. My own opinion is that either they have nasty side effects or that they should be left out of the game. Detect Enemies/Detect Life. Ever try sneaking up on a mage? That physical adept NPC with his high stealth and autosuccesses can't get within twenty yards of a mage before the alarm bells ring. They have too many good uses to ban them, but Det Life in particular should be a nightmare to spell-lock - endless static from the roaches, the flies, the mice...and I doubt it's specific enough to judge size by itself. Det Enemies should need a die roll - automatic detection is just too damn powerful. Combat spells. We have characters who can throw 25-dice mana balls at people. That hurts. I think the resistance roll should be reintroduced - Body for physical, Will for mana - to down-power the 'one-shot-kill' spells. I disapprove of anything that kills PCs or similar-grade NPCs in one action. Another suggestion is a backfire scheme, where if you roll more 1s than either the force of the spell or your Sorcery skill then something awful happens. I like that because it fixes the huge mana-ball problem, as well as the power focus plus magic pool plus force one, twelve dice, forget drain syndrome. Also, where PC mages overreach themselves and take drain, remember that any drug gets filtered slowly out of your body. Pop stim at eight in the morning and there'll be traces still there at lunchtime. My thought was to have stim drop off at one unit per hour (so it takes six hours to lose a Rating-6) and adding more adds to targets. For instance, if you use a rating-3 patch to get rid of drain, then ten minutes later take another rating-3 patch, you have six units of stimulant in your body and the targets are based on that. And using detoxify spells takes away the stimulant - and leaves you back with the drain, so if you detoxed six units of stim you would find yourself on a Serious mental wound. Also, any suggestions for stim overdose? I'll have to check on 'real' effects, but does anyone have any good game ideas? (Like how high can you go? Grunts fighting sleep spells have popped about 20 points of stim in six seconds, just trying to stay awake. I have a feeling that starts to hurt.) And while stimulants might not be physically addictive, they feel _niiiice_ to use...and if you overdo them you're going to start developing tolerance. -------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 May 91 09:09:03 PDT From: hotld!acd (Andrew Durston) Subject: Magic in Cyberpunk The following is an extracted version of a magic system I threw together for a Cyberpunk-variant which I ran a couple of years ago. The setting is a far-future world in technological decline and magical rise. Magic is very unstructured and the caster's will and skills are the key. The system is probably incomplete for purists but worked for what we wanted. Note that it is based on 1st ed Cyberpunk but should work for 2nd edition. Enjoy, Andrew C. Durston, that Rolemaster guy ...!att!hotld!acd *** begin *** "The Magus: A New Cyberpunk Class" by Andrew C. Durston Introduction They are the new breed created by the Maelstrom and the Essence. Those who discovered that their dreams, skills and desires could be focused into reality by force of will. Doctors could heal with out use of medicine, Physicists could create and control their own sources of light and energy, People Persons could subtly influence their friends and disuade their enemies. Magi come from all walks of life but share one unique ability: Magery the knack, the will, that indefinable something which allows their desires to be created from the Essence. Through the use of several new and adjunct skills; Magic Use, Magic Tech and Magic Theory the Magus can create magic, items and understand other magical effects. Others can learn the three new skills but none can manipulate the essence without Magery. A Magus with Magery/3 can over time heal wounds, create simple illusions, with Magery/6 laser beams, altered emotions, seeing the future become possible, with Magery/9 weather and reality can be altered, doors to other realms open and the Magus' will is a frightening thing. Magery & Skills The primary stat for Magi is Empathy. A high Empathy indicates the Magus' ability to be in tune with the world and the flows of new energies. The abuse of drugs or the implantation for foreign matter (cyberware) lowers one's pure aspect and thus their ability to will magical effects. Magic Use is available as a pick in all three backgrounds, Magic Tech is available in the Academic and Military backgrounds, and Magic Theory in the Academic background only. A player desiring to play a Magus should pick a compatible background and expression of magic. For example a Healing Mage should take a fair amount of MedTech, First Aid and other related skills. A Mage who wishes to teleport should know quite a bit about N-dimensional Physics and Energy. The key is for a Mage's magic to succeed, he/she should know the most about what is being attempted. A Healer attempting to teleport or fire laser beams will have little if any success for he/she has little idea how to do this in reality yet alone with mana at her command. The structure of a 'spell' has a basis in reality in least in the terms of the conceptulization of the affect, essence provides the rest. Magic Use in Game Terms There are four types of spells that can be cast in ArdaPunk: Unresisted Spells: EMP + Magery + Magic Use + 1d10 This category includes most summons, heals and generating effects on oneself and willing targets. Resisted Mental Spells: as above versus ave (INT/COOL) + 1d10 This category is used when your spell effect is meant to fool/affect an unwilling target's mind. The average of the target's INT and COOL is defined as WILL and is used in this case. Resisted Physical Spells: as above versus BOD + 1d10 (Transforms) or REF + Magery + Magic Use + 1d10 versus REF + Athletics/MArts + 1d10 (bolts and the like) This category is used when your spell effect needs to affect or hit a target's body to take effect. Examples of this include 'turn to frog' spells and 'magic missile' spells. Contested Spells: Magic roll vs Magic roll This is used when a Magus wished to affect or damage another aware Magus in a contest of pure magical ability (power projection). In all of these cases, the difference between Magic roll and the Target's roll (or 0 in the case of Unresisted Spells) determines the relative level of effect generated. In some cases that can be easy (scaring Sam Gristlebeard is simple, he has a 2 COOL, and requires only a 5 threshold over his WILL roll) or very hard (Ezak the Unknown requires a 30 threshold, from a 0 base, to teleport home). Magi and IP A Magus may apply IP to raise both his base Magery and any of the three related magical skills (if he/she has them). A GM may also allow the Magus to buy bonuses in specific spell effects (such as Teleport, Charm, Heal FW, etc... ), if the Magus is continually successful in that task, at the cost of a skill based on his Magery (much like Combat Sense adds to Awareness, Spell Skill Ranks add to Magery + Magic Use rolls). A Magus can have an unlimited number of 'spells' if he so chooses. -------------------------- End of Flashlife **************************