From [flashlife request] at [kpc.com] Thu Jan 28 02:01:21 1993 Received: by mailbox.kpc.com (4.1/kpc-930119) id AA21130; Thu, 28 Jan 93 02:01:16 PST Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 02:01:16 PST Message-Id: <[9301281001 AA 21130] at [mailbox.kpc.com]> Errors-To: [c d r] at [kpc.com] From: [f--h--e] at [kpc.com] Reply-To: [f--h--e] at [kpc.com] Errors-To: [flashlife request] at [kpc.com] Subject: Flashlife V3 #10 To: [f--h--e] at [kpc.com] Status: R From: Carl Rigney (moderator) <[flashlife request] at [kpc.com]> Flashlife Thu, 28 Jan, 1993 Volume 3 : Issue 10 Today's topics: Universal Brotherhood - Alternative (S. Keith Graham) Broken Toys (Earl A. Hubbell) Availability and Street Index for Spells? (Jonathan T Drummey) [Volumes 2 and 3 are available for anonymous FTP from ftp.kpc.com in /pub/list/flashlife, along with a few other items of potential interest. No ice, either. --CDR ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 6 Nov 92 23:09:12 EST From: [vapsp c x] at [cad.gatech.edu] (S. Keith Graham) Subject: Universal Brotherhood - Alternative Has anyone contemplated (or run?) UB as the "background module"? I.E. Written up all the bad guys and stuff, and had the players discover everything in the information pack on their own? It seems to me to be a much more playable (and potentially hellish) adventure... Though of course, if you do run it, you should do it with characters that are designed to be "written off". (The character that generated the "info-pack" had a 100% mortality rate.) It just seemed to me to be *so* well written that it would make a wonderful basis for an adventure. (And I just can't imagine giving a team the entire package.) [ I agree completely. I just can't see dropping that data dump into the player's laps and stopping the game dead in its tracks while they read it for the next several hours. Much better to let them discover it for themselves. --CDR ] Keith Graham [vapsp c x] at [cad.gatech.edu] -------------------------- Date: Tue, 8 Dec 92 17:47:43 PST From: [e--l] at [alumni.cco.caltech.edu] (Earl A. Hubbell) Subject: Broken Toys This is just some notes I jotted down once while thinking about stereotypical cyberpunk societies, and so is a little rough - but the flashlife people might be interested... Broken Toys "They needed a body. The salvaged IFF had a 50 percent chance of working, and if it failed, the guy on the line would be dead. Badly dead. The stolen specs indicated that Smartwire 7E looked for IR, shape, sound. So they didn't question Slick when he returned with "Mandy", who even smelled human, and came from some autofac catering to the very strange." Consider the stereotypical cyberpunk society, in which wealth is incredibly stratified, and so too the technological capability - the truly rich can afford technology beyond anything the street can dream of... But there's a consequence of this - 'hi' level 'garbage' may be uneconomical to repair/salvage...it may be thrown out, or sold for an exorbitant price to a lower level. And the reasons for considering it 'garbage' may be as simple as fashions changing, having nothing to do with the 'functional' nature of the device. So at the lower levels of the stratified society there should be a fair amount of hi-level equipment that is dysfunctional in assorted ways. 1) The hi-level cybered - obsolete, or not worth the trouble to repair. 'Salvaging' them (murder for cyberware) is probably not worthwhile - gives a bad rep, costs to cover up, etc...better to turn them loose and let the street take care of it...and maybe get useful data from it. 2) Hi level equipment - subtle, multifunctional, smart - A) Breaks in software - the software may be more expensive to fix than to recreate - especially if, say, the documentation has gone missing, the original programmers have vanished, and 6 months of technology has passed it by... B) Stuff drifts to the streets - inadequately patched, higher functions disabled...smartguns that are lighter, tougher than anything on the street, but sometimes fire based on criteria only they know...high performance, but temperamental engines... 3) Uses for things that are not normally uses: Today, we have water pumps made from PVC pipe and tires, ovens from scrap metal, people who salvage >mines< from battlefields to sell for metal in the poorer sections of the world. Imagine much larger differences in wealth, immediately adjacent... A) Model airplane autopilots driving cruise missiles, EMP devices from discarded maser ovens, mass drivers from discarded kinetic energy storage devices, timers from broken toaster ovens, voice recognition circuitry from lamps stolen for voice triggered mines... 4) Psychological breaks - people who can't deal with it, or devices sophisticated enough to have 'moods' - researchers who cracked under the strain, autopilots that flashback to wars, cyberdecks with personality imprints, homicidal smartguns... 5) Hi-tech items may be extensively customized - for someone else's peculiarities - maybe impossible to remove - but if the device is useful enough, someone may want to buy it. 6) Or, the worst problem - it sounds great, but is subtly useless - doesn't interface with anything you have, does things you don't want, or don't need... "It looked like a wiring duct had exploded inside the bulldozer. Condensation dripped from something wrapped in tape, and the ammo looked like the beer cans from which it had been made. The compact computer running the whole show looked as alien as a flying saucer parked by a jeep. El Jefe's tame engineers would build something a tenth the size, gold plated, and working at the push of a button - but this was good enough for the big surprise we had in mind..." Suggestions? -Earl -------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 22:55:48 -0500 From: [j t d] at [world.std.com] (Jonathan T Drummey) Subject: Availability and Street Index for Spells? Reading the discussions on rec.games.frp about who's got what grade of initiation and what force spell and what god-awful amount of karma was spent on the character in question caused a small brainstorm the other day. I run a relatively low-powered campaign and the sight of Grade 4 Initiates as PC's makes my blood curdle, so I thought, what about putting together Availability codes and Street Indexes (sic) for spell formulas? I envision something based on the the spell's Force, Drain Category and type - combat, detection, health, illusion, and manipulation. I don't have any numbers, but I think it would be a quick solution for some of the GM's out there who are having problems with PC's who can toss Fireballs without second thoughts... Comments? -- jonathan drummey [j t d] at [world.std.com] -------------------------- End of Flashlife **************************