The Gaming Den

So . . after shit went down over the online bonus shit, what does the den think of the situation as of yet?

What online bonus shit? I don't keep up with SR outside of this thread... does it show?

Stuff like:
Your Wired Reflexes and Reaction Boosters don't stack unless they are both made hackable by connecting them to the matrix. But if you do, they totally stack and also allow you to breach the augmented maximum of reaction!
There's a List here in the 1st Spoiler:
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=39046

Fucking idiots.

Basically . .
http://www.shadowruntabletop.com/2013/0 ... s-bonuses/

I'm all of out of fucks to give.

So, who is the 'Bull' guy from those threads, anyway? I've never seen someone put so much effort into resisting errata suggestions.

I also can't stop laughing at the 'one attack action but we can't define what an attack is.' Particularly when the system breaks down to something as simple as: you can raise a pistol and shoot a guy, but you can't move your trigger finger twice, but you can raise a camera to your eye and snap a photo after taking the pistol shot. Unless you're using the flash to try to blind someone, of course.

Steven Ratkovich. Very old-school Shadowrun fan, since the beginning. When I was freelancing he was mainly doing Missions, and we were on good terms - Bulldrek, Dumpshock, all of that. However, at a fundamental level we have some disagreements about how (or if) Shadowrun should progress, and we basically stopped being friendly when I left. Bull disliked the transhumanist direction of SR4; he's probably the strongest pink mohawk type in the current Catalyst crop, and it seems like one of the major reasons various bits are being pushed back in SR5. He tends to be conservative in his mechanics and gameplay as much as his setting material - Missions under his aegis is famously non-permissive of any character options, including a lot of stuff that was in the main game books and supplements, nominally out of a concern for "balance" but mostly because he doesn't want (or know how) to game when somebody brings a possession tradition mage or centaur to the table. Good guy, bad game designer.

It seems to me that the design team for Shadowrun has really changed since 4e came out and now. Just from the previews I don't think the new crop has the same savvy with mechanics as the old, albeit that may be a limited sample space. So are the good designers being drowned out by the new guys, are they just resting on their laurels or have they just left?

Left.

Voss wrote:So, who is the 'Bull' guy from those threads, anyway? I've never seen someone put so much effort into resisting errata suggestions.

I also can't stop laughing at the 'one attack action but we can't define what an attack is.' Particularly when the system breaks down to something as simple as: you can raise a pistol and shoot a guy, but you can't move your trigger finger twice, but you can raise a camera to your eye and snap a photo after taking the pistol shot. Unless you're using the flash to try to blind someone, of course.

Yeah that whole argument had me stunned. Though not as much as the fact that a couple of people actually stood up for him and said it was perfectly logical to do things his way, and not at all something that will lead directly to long arguments at the table over what constitutes an attack or not.

They've created the perfect Jackie Chan Wants No Trouble RPG

Wield a ladder to defend yourself.

...I'm stealing that title in the event I ever post on Dumpshock and say mean things about SR5 again. I probably won't though because the last couple times I checked out threads there I was treated to the following advice as to how to deal with power gamers:

some guy I immediately called a douche wrote: To deal with the combat monsters, there have many good suggestions, and most of them might be successful. I prefer the plot train myself.

Set up a meet in the back room of a bar in the barrens. Have some guys in the main room who work for the Johnson try to drag the party into a fight. Try hard. And when they bite, have the Johnson not hire them, because he needs shadowrunners, not killing machines. Then tell the players "sorry, I don't have anything else ready to go. I guess we're done for the night." For most players this will teach the lesson faster than anything else. Young men and dogs only learn by being smacked on the nose.

If you, the GM, is not having a good time, what's the point. Spread the pain around a little, and see how it works.

some guy I was too amazed by to really flame wrote: I think social skills are one of the most misunderstood aspects of the game. They are not mind control and should not be treated as such, and sometimes NPCs will react to a good social roll in a way not intended by the face. For instance, an elf pornomancer who seduces a Humanis goon won't have him eating out of her hand back at his place, but instead will have him violently showing her why humans are supreme in a back alley, quite possibly with some friends along for the (pardon the pun) ride.

Which, I think is topical, because both times I totes did the Jackie face.

The Discussion here
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?s ... &start=175
between Tashiro and ShadowDragon8685 reminds me very much of one between a religious person going:"no, here, look, my magical book of make believe says it's like this obviously!" while an atheist takes a look at the text and goes:"uuh, no, no it really does not . . that's a very specific interpretation of what that bit of text could mean, but i can prove through evidence that it's not the case"

Whipstitch wrote:

some guy I immediately called a douche wrote: To deal with the combat monsters, there have many good suggestions, and most of them might be successful. I prefer the plot train myself.

Set up a meet in the back room of a bar in the barrens. Have some guys in the main room who work for the Johnson try to drag the party into a fight. Try hard. And when they bite, have the Johnson not hire them, because he needs shadowrunners, not killing machines. Then tell the players "sorry, I don't have anything else ready to go. I guess we're done for the night." For most players this will teach the lesson faster than anything else. Young men and dogs only learn by being smacked on the nose.

If you, the GM, is not having a good time, what's the point. Spread the pain around a little, and see how it works.

Huh, I was pretty much with him right up to the point of "Then tell the players "sorry, I don't have anything else ready to go. I guess we're done for the night." "

Stahlseele wrote:So . . after shit went down over the online bonus shit, what does the den think of the situation as of yet?

Holy shit that makes my head hurt. Seriously.

And most of that stuff, in addition to being pointless for being connected to the internet, probably isn't worth the risk of getting your ass hacked.

Like hooking my gun to the matrix to change it's color. Oooh yeah I'm going to fucking do that and then LEAVE THE CONNECTION ON.

I agree with AH. I'm out of fucks to give.

Trying to read that thread but I keep losing my shit every time people write boni instead of bonuses.

Ancient History wrote:Steven Ratkovich. Very old-school Shadowrun fan, since the beginning.
...
Good guy, bad game designer.

I won't even give him that much. I gather he's personally fun to hang out with sometimes, but really only when you happen to be on his good side.

True story: when 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons came out, Bull was for some reason totally stoked about it and got pissed off that people continued the "D&D gives you cancer" meme that he had been pushing for nearly eight actual fucking years. So he said that everyone had to stop being mean to D&D on Dumpshock because he was excited about 4th edition D&D and he was a mod and could make calls like that and fuck you.

So anyway, being an oldschool Shadowrun fanboy who is absolutely terrible at analysis of all kinds, he decided that his first character was going to be a Rogue with multiclass feats to take some Wizard powers. I pointed out that in 4th edition D&D, the Rogue had all of their powers based on Dex/Str or Dex/Cha, while all Wizard powers were based on Int and you only got to raise two stats. Which is basically what any 4rry would have told him, because that's how the fucking game fucking works.

Of course, what he did was to have a temper tantrum and suspend my dumpshock account because I was the bearer of bad news and he can't distinguish between people telling him true things he doesn't like to hear and people personally attacking him.

So, no. I can't say that Bull is a good guy. He's a thin skinned and temperamental little bitch who managed to grow to adulthood without managing to internalize basic pieces of advice like "don't shoot the messenger" or "practice what you preach". People who are (however transiently) on his good side report that he's fun to hang around with, but considering how fast he will turn on you and for such stupid reasons and how much of whatever power he has that he is willing to abuse during his frequent temper tantrums, I cannot say that he is a good guy. He's a terrible person.

-Username17

Do you remember when he tried to derail a thread about how the freelancers weren't being paid by making comments about one of the (female) freelancer's body?

What a classy action from such a classy guy. With people like him in charge I can't imagine how dumpshock became a place full of idiots who like to talk about rape way too much.

How does hacking work in ghost in the shell, 'cause you can do things like turn yourself invisible, triangulate coordinates with satellites, blind a dude, or make a gunner think you shot him when you're actually moving behind him.

That's because everyone is almost always online in GitS, I think. So is SR5 GitS style hacking?

DragonChild wrote:Do you remember when he tried to derail a thread about how the freelancers weren't being paid by making comments about one of the (female) freelancer's body?

why, was something wrong with it

Saying they could pay by doing a calendar shoot.

And that he was actually on topic because it was a possible solution to get freelancers paid.

OgreBattle wrote:

DragonChild wrote:Do you remember when he tried to derail a thread about how the freelancers weren't being paid by making comments about one of the (female) freelancer's body?

why, was something wrong with it

No he basically made titty jokes about a female freelancer in a rather offensive and banal attempt to derail the original CGL clusterfuck discussion (because tits > everything in his book), thus adding sexual harassment and hostile work environment to the bullet list of fringe benefits to working with CGL.

That was right around the point where the law firm my friend was working for, who originally represented CGL, officially decided not to do business with CGL any more.

Yeah. Lawyers saying that there is a big enough ethics difference that the lawyers won't represent you any more.

That's why I was convinced CGL was swirling the toilet and would go away.

Not sure if ethics was the problem. Doing stupid shit most hours of the day plus not paying anyone might have been the deciding factors why CGL just isn't worth it.

OgreBattle wrote:How does hacking work in ghost in the shell, 'cause you can do things like turn yourself invisible, triangulate coordinates with satellites, blind a dude, or make a gunner think you shot him when you're actually moving behind him.

That's because everyone is almost always online in GitS, I think. So is SR5 GitS style hacking?

GitS features "no cyberbrain == no hacking", but shutting off internet access has stopped hacking about zero times. Hackers in that setting are allowed to define their Xanatos gambits post hoc, so there's essentially no way you can keep any device from being hacked.

Hackers in GitS can cause your machines to explode while they are locked in a faraday cage in an undisclosed location. Sometimes they bother to explain that they left virus bombs in your system weeks or months in advance, and sometimes they don't bother and just fucking do it because fuck you.

-Username17