From: [f--h--e] at [netcom.com] Reply-To: [f--h--e] at [netcom.com] Subject: Flashlife V3 #1 To: [f--h--e] at [netcom.com] Bcc: [flashlife list] at [netcom.com] From: Carl Rigney (moderator) <[flashlife request] at [netcom.com]> Flashlife Wed, 11 Sep, 1991 Volume 3 : Issue 1 Today's topics: More interesting Cyberware (Scott L. Baker) Mages behaving themselves (Gengis Khan) Space, the final frontie (Philip Marlowe) Physical Skills; Spirit attacks (REINLIEB) Things that go boom (Philip Marlowe) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1991 10:40 CDT From: "Scott L. Baker" <[B--K--R] at [ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu]> Subject: More interesting Cyberware I came up with some more additions to the list... A gun that uses sub-sonics to cause nausea, balance loss, wattery eyes, and a feeling of sandpaper on the spine. APDS rounds with an Acid-Nerve agent gel inside. A gas that causes a person to enter a partial coma and relieve their worst nightmare (ala The Dark Night Returns). Darts with pure histimines in it, causes a rash and MAJOR itching to occur. A grenade that produces an Electro-magnetic field, does wonders for Cyberware. And in the catagory of new cyber senses... An active imaging system that allows you to see ANYTHING. Heres the catch, it uses a combo of coded sound, IR and an Electro-Magnetic Field. Anyone with thermographc sight will see you commin. Also sight in the Ultraviolet range, alows you to see at night and in the dark as if it were dusk. Hope you enjoy them... Scott Baker -------------------------- Date: Wed, 19 Jun 91 16:45:19 BST From: Gengis Khan <[P J Adam] at [loughborough.ac.uk]> Subject: Mages behaving themselves Hi there. Reading through back issues of Flashlife, all the way back to 1990, I kept coming across people who offered 'equalisers'...between mages and samurai. Now I know mages are _meant_ to be immensely powerful. I _know_ that mages are only 1% of the population. But how many citizens are running Wired-II with smartlink and enhanced targeting? Samurai are good too (try running against ordinary mortals sometime and see how easy it can be...sometimes) but mages can become absolutely sickening. An example of my own. A coyote shaman who didn't know she was, until someone told her (The Trickster having fun...) who really wanted to be a wiregirl. After a couple of educational dreams, she's now gone for Initiation and is effectively untouchable by magic. With Wired-II, smartlink, spurs et cetera (magic theory? no...magic loss from cyberware? Why don't people tell me these things!) and painfully-learned Firearms-6, she's a passable samurai, up to starting character standard at least. No great strengths, but no real weakness (apart from some interesting psychological programs...her version of Increase Reaction spell-locked did have bad effects on her) and after spending about seventy karma on her she'll need retiring by the end of term. And as other players panic, a mercenary character of mine had nearly two hundred spent on him, mostly in skills, and a couple million overall in cyberware. Sure, he could fight, drive, even deck a little...but show him a mage and he got very antsy. Lynch was no less vulnerable to mages after 29 runs than he had been to start with (body and will both started at 6) and the only times he went down were from magic, or from having an arm torn off by a dragon. (We play a lot of Shadowrun here at Loughborough...) The problem is simply that by losing one point of magic (for skillwires and cybereyes and a smartlink) and burning karma on skills and spell-locks, a mage can become a more effective fighter than a samurai. (Analyse Device- Ingram Smartgun? Increase Body, Strength, Reaction+4? personal Combat Senses?) And add to that the total inability of anyone with hostile intent to get within twenty to fifty yards of a magician with Detect Enemies...well, I paid good karma for that Stealth skill and now it doesn't do squat. Even not doing this, magicians throwing up Physical Barrier and then working as gun platforms can wreak havoc. As for trying to hide...well, you can change your name, your face, your style, everything, and it makes no difference at all to the ritual sorcery, or the watcher sent to get you. One solution to the damage done by magicians to corp/police security units, though, is simple: four snipers with assault cannon about a klick from the fight, with an astrally percieving adept or magician to spot targets. That guy's got a powerfocus - blam. She just threw a spell, blam. Other targets, of course, are effective samurai, vehicles etc. but mages will always be the priority target. Because remember, your average Joe doesn't like magicians. In our campaign, the magicians are having to be discreet because Joe Public have started associating bad things with mages, helped by screamsheet reporting of whatever magically-assisted crimes occur. Bad weather? Magicians tampering with nature. Airliner crash? Mage did it. And among guards, cops etc. they will have suffered first-hand magical attack and so anyone who might be a mage will get shot first (like the small one at the back who isn't armed?) And people don't know much about magic, except that when a mage looks at you you fall down dead. So mage prisoners have a bad time of it... Basically, power comes with drawbacks. If you want to be one of the most powerful individuals in the world (which magicians undoubtedly can be) you'd better plan for the consequences. Be discreet or be very, _very_ bulletproof. Paul Adam "Why did you shoot that prisoner, Corporal Riley?" "He was lying there and I told him not to move, and he turned his head to try and look at me, sir." "You shot him for looking at you?" "He's a shaman thingy, sir." "Well done, Corporal Riley..." "Freeze!" _BLAM!_ "AAAGH! You shot me!" "I fired a warning shot!" "My leg, man, you shot my leg!" "OK, OK, so I hit you with the warning shot!" -- P.J.Adam%[uk ac loughborough] at [net.cs.relay] -------------------------- Date: Fri, 21 Jun 91 18:48:29 BST From: philip marlowe <[A J Beckett] at [loughborough.ac.uk]> Subject: Space, the final frontier Last time J.A.F.O. sent in a thing about magic and space.The 'book' says nasty things happen if you go astral at 50.001 miles above the Earth's surface (" EXACTLY how accurate is this altimeter?"), ie: you go stark raving bonkers or blow up or die( not as interesting as the first two). The book also suggests that magic is due to the field produced by all living things, a bit of a bummer if you're on the Moon for example.I've come up with some spacey type rules, such as zero-g manouvres and how wireboys can send themselves spinning off out of control, because they're weightless and move too fast.Range mods are interesting too, I've reffed shuttles firing at each other at ranges of kilometres instead of meters, it worked well enough. We had the magic in space discussion, and we had a few talking points: 1 You can't cast spells if there's no mana hanging around (mana batteries?!) 2 If you go astral, you MIGHT go mad, you MIGHT die, you MIGHT be MORE powerful when you get back, or all of the above.Throw a dice! 3 Lots of corporate research going on up there, no knowing what's going down. 4 What about Mars? Less magic, more, different, or same spells with different effects?(Manic laughter)Throw another dice.He he he. Astral discrimination: Watcher: "'Ello, who are you then?" Free spirit:" I, my good man, am a free spirit,free to wander the Earth in pursuit of my own personal goals,free to live and love, free to.." Watcher:" Yeah yeah, that's enough, you're not coming in.Nuts, when your waiting for a free spirit, you can't find one anywhere, but when you're waiting for a bonded one they're all drekking well free aren't they?" Cash shock, or 'valuation trauma': Frist: "These rods that are 3 inches thick and 150ft long, what are they made out of?" GM : "Well you know that stuff thats worth 88 grand per cubic inch...." -------------------------- Date: Sat, 6 Jul 91 00:52 EDT From: Subject: Physical Skills; Spirit attacks How are physical skills used, they are mentioned in the text, you can buy auto-successes with them, but no guidelines are anywhere presented. There is a conc. in running , but running is detailed in the combat section and has nothing to do with a skill roll. In the grimore we discover that picking pockets is a stealth activity, something not mentioned under stealth. What attack codes do physicaly manifested spirits use in melee combat? In the main book desert spirits only can attack but no code in listed. The Grimore removes the attack 'power' from the description of desert spirits and implies (gives details of how humans can hit in melee combat) that any spirit can manifest and physically slug somebody. -Wishing Fasa would hire editors -Andrew Shadowalker [Look in the chapters for "Behind the Scenes" or "After the Shadowrun" for more on skill use. I don't allow spirits to melee, but if you want to allow them then FASA probably expects you to use the corresponding elemental type. --CDR] -------------------------- Date: Fri, 21 Jun 91 18:48:29 BST From: Philip Marlowe <[A J Beckett] at [loughborough.ac.uk]> Subject: Things that go boom RE: 500kg of C12. I was on that run, and even if I'd had the U.S. Army handbook for killing commies in new and interesting methods (which I have'nt seeing as how I live in an English town that no-ones fought over for the past 2000 years), I'd have still used that much because the Werewolf Assassin and his pals that we were trying to get have defied all previous attempts by us to kill him, so I reckon flattening the block he was in would be perfectly acceptable, thankyou. Whats more, its fun! Wanderer mentioned die hard, and how a little bit of C4 goes a long way.OK, fair enough, but what is the average New York cops skill in demolitions?Is it good practice to say "f*** it" and put all your detonators into one slab of C-4?Were the terrorists at the bottom end of the lift shaft complaining about the unprofessional way Brucey had blown them up as they 'popped their clogs'? I think not. The point I'm trying to make is; what is good practice is not neccessarily the 'correct' way to go about it.We COULD have phoned up the data net at 2am: "Excuse me, how much C12 do I need to blow a building up?" "How big a building is it?" "Just a minute, I'll go measure it,what's that funny siren sound?" OR, we could phone up a fixer, as you said, WHICH IS WHAT WE DID!!!! and that was the answer we got,we knew it was too much, our characters didn't, because, as has been said before, WE DID'NT KNOW DREK ABOUT DEMOLITIONS. I rest my case. boom. oops, wrong case. "Submachine gunning that Knightsky was a stupid idea" "But it was a perfectly planned and executed stupid idea.And it worked!" "Excuse me mister, I may look 12 but I'm 46 and I've got 300 kids to support, I'm a shadowrunner, here to do a job and I wondered if you knew anything about it.Here's my card" " POLICE!!!" Heres lookin' at you kid, MARLOWE. -------------------------- End of Flashlife (but not for long!) ************************************