Cyberpunk Fantasy Heartbreaker

[Endovior]

which is something that i do not understand . .
why would people try and do that anyway?
if i can't swim, i don't jump into deep water.
if i can't fly, i don't jump off of high places.
if i can't fight, i don't expose myself to harm.
if i can't magic, then i don't try to sling spells.

It's a rule of game design; players aren't expected to automatically understand all the implications of the system just by looking at the rules. You might even go so far as to say 'players are stupid'; though not exactly fair, it makes the point. Good game design helps avert this by removing various traps from the system and offering pointers at the most workable tropes. My point is that you shouldn't have to invest in a lot of Permanent Stress as the ante that lets you participate in combat at all; you just need to make it clear that people that don't do that have a more peripheral and specialized role in combat... ie: assassinating mages, sniping from a distance, maybe operating a vehicle or something... but not standing out in the middle of the firefight getting shot at, because 'normal' people that try that kind of shit get dead.

irregardless

regardless

Nonstandard usage isn't wrong, it's just nonstandard. The writers of dictionaries are not the legislators of language, they're the historians of usage. And since posts to an internet forum do not constitute a formal paper, I can totally get away with using nonstandard language, irregardless of your criticisms.

[Stahlseele]

which is something that i do not understand . .
why would people try and do that anyway?
if i can't swim, i don't jump into deep water.
if i can't fly, i don't jump off of high places.
if i can't fight, i don't expose myself to harm.
if i can't magic, then i don't try to sling spells.

It's a rule of game design; players aren't expected to automatically understand all the implications of the system just by looking at the rules. You might even go so far as to say 'players are stupid'; though not exactly fair, it makes the point. Good game design helps avert this by removing various traps from the system and offering pointers at the most workable tropes. My point is that you shouldn't have to invest in a lot of Permanent Stress as the ante that lets you participate in combat at all; you just need to make it clear that people that don't do that have a more peripheral and specialized role in combat... ie: assassinating mages, sniping from a distance, maybe operating a vehicle or something... but not standing out in the middle of the firefight getting shot at, because 'normal' people that try that kind of shit get dead.

And here i was hoping there was another reason than"Durr, people are stupid like that".
If every built has to be equally viable in almost all situations, then why have different builds at all?

irregardless

:ugone2far: :nonono: regardless

Nonstandard usage isn't wrong, it's just nonstandard. The writers of dictionaries are not the legislators of language, they're the historians of usage. And since posts to an internet forum do not constitute a formal paper, I can totally get away with using nonstandard language, irregardless of your criticisms. :tongue:

This sounds remarkably related to this somehow O.o

Isn't the standard correct because it's the standard?
Hasn't the standard been made standard because it's correct?
So would not using the standard not actually mean it's incorrect?
Otherwise, nice troll ^^

[Quantumboost]

Isn't the standard correct because it's the standard?
Hasn't the standard been made standard because it's correct?
So would not using the standard not actually mean it's incorrect?
Otherwise, nice troll ^^

No to all of the above. The "standard", such as it exists at all, is just a description of how people have used language. That's all a dictionary is, a description of past usage (which in turn suggests ways that you could express a concept with no other knowledge about the listener aside from them knowing the language).

Language is "correct" when the speaker succeeds in communicating the intended concepts to the listener. It is "incorrect" when the speaker does not succeed in communicating the intended concepts to the listener.

It is inefficient when you use words that are longer to express a concept that is equally well expressed with shorter words, such as the case with "irregardless" vs. "regardless". It is not, however, incorrect as such.

[Stahlseele]

Ah, okay ^^

[Endovior]

which is something that i do not understand . .
why would people try and do that anyway?
if i can't swim, i don't jump into deep water.
if i can't fly, i don't jump off of high places.
if i can't fight, i don't expose myself to harm.
if i can't magic, then i don't try to sling spells.

It's a rule of game design; players aren't expected to automatically understand all the implications of the system just by looking at the rules. You might even go so far as to say 'players are stupid'; though not exactly fair, it makes the point. Good game design helps avert this by removing various traps from the system and offering pointers at the most workable tropes. My point is that you shouldn't have to invest in a lot of Permanent Stress as the ante that lets you participate in combat at all; you just need to make it clear that people that don't do that have a more peripheral and specialized role in combat... ie: assassinating mages, sniping from a distance, maybe operating a vehicle or something... but not standing out in the middle of the firefight getting shot at, because 'normal' people that try that kind of shit get dead.

And here i was hoping there was another reason than"Durr, people are stupid like that".
If every built has to be equally viable in almost all situations, then why have different builds at all?

Every build doesn't have to be equally viable in all situations, no; that's not what we're trying for here. However, every archetype that the setting encourages should be viable in every group activity you expect that the setting will put them in; otherwise, certain archetypes that you are encouraging characters to play are actually bad for their teams some of the time, and that's bad. Just like you can't have 'stealth' be something that certain archetypes don't get to do at all, you can't have 'combat' be something that certain archetypes don't get to do at all.

regardless

Nonstandard usage isn't wrong, it's just nonstandard. The writers of dictionaries are not the legislators of language, they're the historians of usage. And since posts to an internet forum do not constitute a formal paper, I can totally get away with using nonstandard language, irregardless of your criticisms.

Isn't the standard correct because it's the standard?
Hasn't the standard been made standard because it's correct?
So would not using the standard not actually mean it's incorrect?
Otherwise, nice troll ^^

Not in language. The 'standard' is simply a question of historical record; if I can say something, and be understood by the majority of my listeners, then I actually can't be wrong in saying it. 'Irregardless' has been a word since about 1930; and continues to gain acceptance as lexicographers slowly give up on their prescriptive insistence and concede that yes, people are in fact using it as a word. The only real requirement for a word to be a word is that people can actually use it to communicate with each other; the fact that I can say irregardless and be understood means I am right.

Again, I wouldn't use it in a formal context, because a formal context implies acceptance of a host of additional rules on top of clear communication. But here? No such restriction. I can say irregardless if I want to, irregardless of how much it annoys the grammar nazi party.

[RadiantPhoenix]

irregardless

regardless

Nonstandard usage isn't wrong, it's just nonstandard. The writers of dictionaries are not the legislators of language, they're the historians of usage. And since posts to an internet forum do not constitute a formal paper, I can totally get away with using nonstandard language, irregardless of your criticisms.

That doesn't mean I have to like it, so .

Also, it's confusing in the same manner and for the same reason that inflammable is.

[fectin]

But by ignoring the rules of language, you are undermining everyone's ability to communicate clearly in the future.

[Chamomile]

There's no utility in the utilization of a gargantuan word when a diminutive one will suffice.

[Stahlseele]

But by ignoring the rules of language, you are undermining everyone's ability to communicate clearly in the future.

double-speech/new-speech.
doubleplusnogood.

[Vebyast]

...Are languages all going to be the same in FTCFH as they are now? For all we know, Endevior could just be staying in-character.

[Endovior]

Can we try not derailing the thread over something inconsequential, please?

[Chamomile]

I've always been a fan of irredisregardless.

[TheFlatline]

irregardless

regardless

Nonstandard usage isn't wrong, it's just nonstandard. The writers of dictionaries are not the legislators of language, they're the historians of usage. And since posts to an internet forum do not constitute a formal paper, I can totally get away with using nonstandard language, irregardless of your criticisms.

Irregardless is a real word. It means "without regardlessness" or "not regardless".

So you still fail, even if you fall back on the "nonstandard usage" bullshit excuse.

[A Man In Black]

So. Setting aside the completely asinine grammar argument...

There's been a lot of talk about how the collapse of governments and economies have changed life between now and 2XXX, and a fair bit of talk about how magic has changed life between now and then, but not a lot of talk about how technology has changed life between now and then. Maybe that's because it's an assumed thing because everyone else in the conversation actually played Shadowrun.

So what key technologies changed life between now and then? What essential concepts are obsolete? What new roles exist in society? Where is the tech level slider set?

(I know most of this is going to be off-the-shelf standard cyberpunk but at least it beats the hell out of arguing about fucking "irregardless.")

[Stahlseele]

COMPLETELY Virtual 2nd Reality, computing power of untold potency, microminiaturizing stuff to the cellular level, nanorobotics, genetical and biological engineering, cybernetic man/machine interfaces, terminator like cyborgs, optical computing, storage capacity is no limit anymore, seems like quantum computing/communications are planned as well . .
New roles? Few new, of course the people who put their mind into the intarwebz for example to be the next lulzsec and wikileaks and anonymous all rolled up into one big thing.

[TheFlatline]

Is it really that over the top though? If energy is a scarcity, then the computing power to have a virtual reality is expensive.

[Stahlseele]

Well, FUEL is scarce . .
Solar Energy and Fusion Tech are used instead of normal nuclear tech.

[Endovior]

That is a notable difference, yes. Fuel is scarce, so conventional industry that requires that you burn things or whatnot is hard to do. And at the same time, resources are scarce, which goes all the way up the pipeline and makes every thing you can get more expensive.

On the other hand, provided you're near a place that has a reasonably cheap source of electricity (probably a dammed river or something, though a few cities have invested in big expensive fusion plants that can be run fairly cheaply once the expense of setup is past), simple electrical power isn't necessarily all that expensive. Of course, if you're outside one of those places, and thus have to use an expensive and inefficient source of electricity, costs go through the roof.

[Stahlseele]

Basically, you take the World of Robocop(The first movie), add in Tron for the NEtWays, and a bit of Lord of the Rings for the magic and meta-races in Shadowrun . .
In THIS Version here, you replace Tolkien with Lovecraft mostly it seems . .

[kzt]

Franks bit with no global networks means you better have great command line skills to be a hacker since you are essentially (or really) doing it via dial-up.

[zeruslord]

that's not how real hacking works at all. Really, you spend an awfully long time finding a flaw in a system that lets you run code at all, and then you package it up to spread itself or phone home or whatever, and get it into the wild somehow (attack sites, mass spam from a throwaway email, etc). Then you've basically won until the vulnerability gets patched. Cyberpunk pretty much always gets this at least partly wrong by involving significant amounts of time during the hack and even just having "the hack" as an event that you even worry about because it's lame as hell from a plot perspective. Movies get it even more wrong, with hackers sitting down and typing a bunch of commands into a screen with one of the sillier iTunes visualizations behind huge blinking words.

My understanding of the hacking system Frank has proposed is that it doesn't work at all like the real world. Instead, it involves doing a bunch of Neo-like shit over high-bandwidth connections at fairly short range, because it's easy to write entertaining rules for, looks good, and keeps the hacker involved with the group the whole time.

Basically, by having the hacker typing stuff into a command line while shit goes down, you've managed to both make him lame and be laughably inaccurate.

[Endovior]

-snip-

This is very true. Hacking is much more complex then it's portrayed to be in games and movies. The movies have the excuse of not wanting to bore the audience with the mundane details of things, and instead show some kind of entertaining visual thing to the masses... and the games have the better excuse of needing rules that are fun to play with.

Not caring about the movies, the game issue is nontrivial; we don't want to give the hacker lots of screentime while the players are all kicking around at home base, because then most of the group is sitting around doing nothing while one guy does it all. At the same time, we do want to give the hacker screentime during the actual mission. Accordingly, we don't want realistic hacking rules where the hacker does all his work in a basement; we want hacking rules that require the hacker to sneak into the base with everyone else and work in realtime.

The best concession we can make to realistic hacking is to give the hacker a quick series of rolls he can do to gain bonuses on whatever he tries to do during the actual mission (snooping out their defenses from behind seven proxies, researching the vulnerabilities in the sorts of IC his probing detects, tweaking the hacker apps he's using to give himself an attack that specifically targets those vulnerabilities, etc...); this is the kind of thing that'll eat up big chunks of in-game time, but not much real-world time, which is just what we're looking for. All we need then is specific and straightforward rules for what rolls you need to make to get what sorts of bonuses, and how long the attempts take and how much they cost... and then we've got a quick pre-hack minigame that shouldn't take more then a minute of real-world time and reflects reality just as strongly as we want it to. The rest falls under whichever sort of hacking mechanics we find best reflect our desire to have the hacker being present for the mission.

[Vebyast]

I assume that the rules from the old "Ends of the Matrix" thread are in force, and that strong crypto doesn't exist. If that's not the case, ignore the rest of this post.

---

Hacking could actually be a realtime affair, especially if you've never met your opponent and the only information you have about them is that they're standing in front of you. You have a giant bank of exploits, but before you use any of it you have to figure out what to use it on. You have to isolate your target's traffic, you have to break the crypto on his traffic, you have to figure out what programs are generating his traffic, and only then can you use one of your exploits to break in. Once you're in, you have to look around to figure out what you can do, and then can you actually do something.

So, in this case, entertaining rules may very well reflect reality to some slight degree.

[Username17]

OK: basic mechanics. The core SR4 resolution system is actually quite good, and could easily be hacked together with some After Sundown modifications and be fully functional with a few days tinkering. That's the default, I think.

But hey, it's a new game, we could go crazy and do it as a d100, TN 100 game. Or any other modern half-way decent RNG.

-Username17

[fectin]

You may want to reevaluate how the stats are broken out. You've talked before about how that was a bad thing.