alt.War: Turning Anger into productiveness

[hermit]

The whole idea of technomancers was stupid if you ask me, since they already mix magic (okay, "resonance" which works just like magic but somehow isn't) and scrap the idea of Otaku being actually just AI drones. But yes, Emergence was a bad book and the TM plot worse. Two brothers? The Manga/Manadyne guys?

Evil Technomancers are indeed stupid, unless you make mancers mages. You can explain evil mages by handwaiving this as magic, or bringing in the Horrors (Blood Magic in itself actually isn't evil, it's just like nuclear power - it has bad long term effects). Evil technomancers, who are not mages at all, but biocomputer people like the vévés girl from Gibson's Sprawl II and III? Hello?

Really, they introduced crap like hack the Matrix spells already. It's called Complex Forms. Technomancers are hack-the-matrix magic in all but name. Bad decision if there ever was one.

Who wanted that plotline anyway, of the FP people?

/rant mode

As for the former OM stuff being Celedyr's now ... well, he does need new brains in jars and probably dabbles in Halberstam's mengelesque stuff too, so it would fit, save for the Ubervampires With Cyberware stuff.

And yes, their fall was a matter of time, I just didn't remember that part from Augmentation. Pity they brushed it off like this, would've been a better story than Emergence and it's substantial amount of nonsense.

Back on topic: Since Tamanous is active worldwide, what about other fronts? We have (arguably) the Body Bank, their openly operated clinic and prison in Pathein, their secret bases in Africa and LA. What about that Phillipino cannibal restaurant chain? Or maybe activity in GeMiTo, the Vienna Barrens, Berlin, Kronstadt or the Balkans? Also, since Amazonia is (at least according to some hints) treating the infected better than metahumans, maybe Tamanous operates openly in Metropole as well? After all, Amazonia, loving the Awakened (including the Infected) and trees more than people, would probably object less to human farms for medical research than to factory farms for pigs. Also (though all this would totally inflate the Tamanous bit), what about Tamanous' ties to Spinrad?

[Username17]

At the beginning of the Aftermath chapter of Emergence, there is a short fiction piece about brothers Bobby and Joey, of which Joey is apparently now dead and an e-ghost. This short fiction piece by Ancient History is the only part of the two brothers plotline that actually made it into the book. The rest of that story, which was originally supposed to span the entire book, was replaced with... random musings and incomplete ideas. I dunno, that book is a mess. They didn't go with any of my suggestions either.

The thing that fills me with dread, is that the "ah fuckit" format they ended up with for Emergence is apparently the intended format of Artifacts Somethingsomething Darkside.

Since Tamanous is active worldwide, what about other fronts? We have (arguably) the Body Bank, their openly operated clinic and prison in Pathein, their secret bases in Africa and LA. What about that Phillipino cannibal restaurant chain? Or maybe activity in GeMiTo, the Vienna Barrens, Berlin, Kronstadt or the Balkans? Also, since Amazonia is (at least according to some hints) treating the infected better than metahumans, maybe Tamanous operates openly in Metropole as well? After all, Amazonia, loving the Awakened (including the Infected) and trees more than people, would probably object less to human farms for medical research than to factory farms for pigs. Also (though all this would totally inflate the Tamanous bit), what about Tamanous' ties to Spinrad?

Amazonia loves trees and hates people. So Wendigo probably have at least the secret backing of some of the government. But the country is still trying to portray itself as a real country, with like a security council seat and stuff. I doubt they'd willingly entertain the kind of international public relations disaster that would be allowing the quasi-mythical masters of evil to run anything with their name on it.

That being said, Amazonia does hate people, and it wouldn't surprise me a bit if people in Amazonian prisons just "disappeared" sometimes, with wardens taking particularly troublesome inmates and turning them over to the men in gray. I think the wardens would end up splitting some money for that, as they'd continue to be being paid to store that inmate, but since Tamanous is actually storing the inmate elsewhere, the warden can pocket some of the money. I suspect in fact, that Amazonia doesn't even officially have a death penalty. It's just that the fatality rate inside prisons and police custody is really high.

Now that being said, Amazonia doesn't really control every part of Metropole. There are favelas in there where the police simply do not go. And it wouldn't surprise me at all if there were weird super villain bases set up there that had their own sources of water and power. Tamanous wouldn't be the only villain organization looking into that kind of real estate either. The Universal Brotherhood or Alamos 20,000 could operate as normal. You could throw in Cobra Command in all but name, or even actually in name, because that sort of thing could totally happen there.

-Username17

[hermit]

At the beginning of the Aftermath chapter of Emergence, there is a short fiction piece about brothers Bobby and Joey, of which Joey is apparently now dead and an e-ghost. This short fiction piece by Ancient History is the only part of the two brothers plotline that actually made it into the book. The rest of that story, which was originally supposed to span the entire book, was replaced with... random musings and incomplete ideas. I dunno, that book is a mess. They didn't go with any of my suggestions either.

That was supposed to be a worldwide plot? What? It seemed like a mood piece about eGhosts. Like ... wow.

The thing that fills me with dread, is that the "ah fuckit" format they ended up with for Emergence is apparently the intended format of Artifacts Somethingsomething Darkside.

Oh nice. Before war!, Emergence was the worst book in 4E, even before the Almanach. It was just as bad in disregarding canon and had an even less pleasant format. And that is what ShadowArtifactBallZ is supposed to look like? Yay.

As for supervillains in Amazonia ... what about all those eco radicals Amazonia supports, pampers and uses for sock troops, anyway? That sort of has gone silent from back in the hey when Findley was among us or something.

People like the Black Scorpions, or Black star, or any given evil syndicate could easily set up shop in Metropole though, I agree. Probably, the Church also has a huge base there. It's like a 40K hive city in flat.

[sabs]

I hate Technomancers with a passion. They take my favorite CP/SR character type and shit on it.

And from my point of view, they break the Technology/Magic barrier wide open.

Hermit, can you add this guy as a ShadowTalker..

Sum Bo De | Troll Martial Artist. | Hong Kong | Punching People in the Face | Cyberware, blood sports | Human Parents, Triads

He's a Chinese Troll, born to human parents from a Shiawase Corp Arcology in Hong Kong.

[hermit]

Added. Also added a couple more.

[Ancient History]

At the beginning of the Aftermath chapter of Emergence, there is a short fiction piece about brothers Bobby and Joey, of which Joey is apparently now dead and an e-ghost. This short fiction piece by Ancient History is the only part of the two brothers plotline that actually made it into the book. The rest of that story, which was originally supposed to span the entire book, was replaced with... random musings and incomplete ideas. I dunno, that book is a mess. They didn't go with any of my suggestions either.

That was supposed to be a worldwide plot? What? It seemed like a mood piece about eGhosts. Like ... wow.

Worldwide, no. Booklong, yes. The intent was that the story of the brothers would sort of parallel the developments and revelations in the book, provide a human context to measure the big events against and provide a narrative.

It...didn't happen. I got my short story in because I wrote it first, and they kept it there because they thought it read well. To this day I consider it some of my best fiction...I wrote when my own brother Joey was going off for his first tour in Iraq. I later turned it into a spoken-word electronic music piece for class, but I never liked how that came out.

[Username17]

I hate Technomancers with a passion. They take my favorite CP/SR character type and shit on it.

Meh. Time I guess for a Shadowrun history lesson. Back from first edition, one of the tropes that they tried to get going was the idea of pure brain hacking - literally plugging a cable into the datajack and going in with no deck. The rules made this impossible, but it was something people could supposedly do. They abortively attempted to make rules that would allow naked hacking, but with the target number penalties and how that worked with the pre-4th variable target number system, it was still essentially impossible. Not because it was design intent for it to be impossible, or even because the fluff told you it couldn't be done, but simply because the rules for doing it happened to generate success tests that you were never ever going to pass.

Then to patch that, rather than by making some sort of persona emulation skill that deckless deckers could have, they made a cranial cyberdeck. That was supposed to cover things, but in reality no one used them because they cost more essence than Wired 3 and more money than the GDP of the city you were living in. They fiddled with that a few times and never got it working, and they made the Otaku. The Otaku did what lots of people wanted: be someone who could run naked in the matrix without a deck. That was seriously something that a lot of people wanted out of life. They even liked the weird "technoshamanic" mysticism crap that they layered on top of it, because that is just like Mona Lisa Overdrive and Neuromancer. But there were several problems.

• People didn't like the fact that their name meant "anime nerd".
• People didn't like the idea that their character was going to have their abilities evaporate later on.
• Not everyone wanted to play a precocious teenager, and pretty much no one wanted their primary enemy to be a precocious teenager. Not just because shooting kids in the face for money is not something most people wanted to do, but also because there is very little sense of accomplishment after beating a child at something. Even if it's something they are very good at, like video games.

So at the base, technomancers were a perfectly fine idea. Take all the stuff people liked about the Otaku and ditch everything people hated. So: new name, no more "Fading", allow them to be any age with normal abilities. Boom. Done. Done right, it could have really filled an archetype that Shadowrun players and writers have been wating to fill since the late 80s.

And from my point of view, they break the Technology/Magic barrier wide open.

How? Seriously, how do they do that? The brain runs on roughly 25 watts. A whole human body (assuming a 70 kilo body), is emitting like a 100 Watt lightbulb all the time. The Swedish Space Agency got a stable WiFi link with space (420 kilometers) using a 6 watt amplifier. A human body has literally dozens of times the bioelectrical power necessary to run a short range WiFi emitter. There's no reason that a human could't interface with a BlueTooth using their own Zeta Waves, they just don't.

Or are you one of those people who flips out because someone whose mutant power is that their unique body chemistry and brain wave formats allow them to interact with wireless devices gets penalized in doing that when they disrupt their unique body and brain chemistry with implants? Because seriously, I have never understood that argument. Having your body's mutant powers get damaged when you replace chunks of your body with plastic seems kind of a no-brainer to me. Reusing the Essence Loss mechanic is also pretty much a no-brainer, because that is exactly what Essence Loss is for. Or are you someone who is flipping out because Technomancers use Sprites, which I will remind you Otaku already had?

Now all that being said, the Technomancers didn't pan out very well. There was a fundamental resistance at the top to allow hacking to do anything, and the resulting mechanics are pretty much a jumble. Since all the really cool stuff like Psychotropes, Ultraviolets, and Brainscans are still reserved for NPCs and GM-Fiat, there is literally nothing that any hacker/decker/technomancer can do if the opponents simply don't let them connect. And furthermore, they keep insisting that people should be able to use "common sense" (as in: not rolling dice) to keep enemy hackers from getting access to their system. And the result is hat hackers really can't do anything unless the GM spoon-feeds them something to do. So the mutant power to hack without a deck isn't very useful at all. And as a result, it's really hard to take them seriously as a threat or even an interest in the sixth world.

But that's an issue of muddled, schizophrenic, and overly conservative mechanics and storytelling. There wasn't anything unsalvageable about the Technomancer proposal that first hit the to-do pile.

That was supposed to be a worldwide plot? What? It seemed like a mood piece about eGhosts. Like ... wow.

It was supposed to be the core story running through Emergence at one point. Those two guys were going to do stuff and advance the plot, and they were going to fight and they were going to take different paths, and.... none of that shit actually happened. The "Brothers" storyline was scrapped, but only after Ancient History had a completed draft of his portion so they just said "Ah Fuckit" and threw it in totally without context.

-Username17

[sabs]

Actually I have no problem with a sort of marriage of biology and technology that allows for people to interface with the Matrix without a deck (though I do feel like there ought to be a datajack.)

I can sort of live with the bio-node, I can sense and interpret nova hot wireless signals with absolutely nothing. Though.. it's kind of meh.

I hate Sprites, and that the Otaku had them doesn't really make it any better. I played SR1 and 2, but Never touched SR3.. so to me Otaku are just this weird thing I never got to play with, that sounds 1/2 interesting and 1/2 really icky.
I hate that Sprites/Technomancers go to 12 and Hackers are stuck at 6.
I find the whole whole deep resonance, dissonance, Realms stuff to be kind of blatantly magical and "Astral Quests in the Matrix! Wee!"

I have nothing against using Essence loss as a mechanic.

I have /big/ issues with the Echos. Especially the ones that are just.. blatant super-powers/magical.
The technomancer re-wires her nervous system to get Improved Reflexes, and Bio-wires.

[Username17]

Actually I have no problem with a sort of marriage of biology and technology that allows for people to interface with the Matrix without a deck (though I do feel like there ought to be a datajack.)

I can sort of live with the bio-node, I can sense and interpret nova hot wireless signals with absolutely nothing. Though.. it's kind of meh.

I hate Sprites, and that the Otaku had them doesn't really make it any better. I played SR1 and 2, but Never touched SR3.. so to me Otaku are just this weird thing I never got to play with, that sounds 1/2 interesting and 1/2 really icky.
I hate that Sprites/Technomancers go to 12 and Hackers are stuck at 6.
I find the whole whole deep resonance, dissonance, Realms stuff to be kind of blatantly magical and "Astral Quests in the Matrix! Wee!"

I have nothing against using Essence loss as a mechanic.

I have /big/ issues with the Echos. Especially the ones that are just.. blatant super-powers/magical.
The technomancer re-wires her nervous system to get Improved Reflexes, and Bio-wires.

I share your lack of enthusiasm as regards the echoes. Those weren't half assed so much as quarter assed. But the real issue there is that no one agreed what Technomancers should be doing. There was no developer direction in what the answers to the basic questions of what these guys did in the world in general and in Shadowruns in particular. So their actual abilities and mechanics are directionless and largely worthless. Their numbers are just sort of random - but the whole Matrix is like that. Most Sprites are actually worthless because the Matrix system is so "Simon Says" that the lack of access to specific irreplaceable Complex Forms (such as Analyze) means that they actually cannot do anything. Crap like that.

Unwired's failure to clean that subsystem up infuriated me so much that I made Ends of The Matrix. Which is a ground-up concepting of how the Matrix could work and how Technomancers could fit into it. If I were to do SR5, I'd do things a little differently of course, but the final product would look a lot more like The Ends and a lot less like anything Aaron ever wrote.

-Username17

[fectin]

Meh. Time I guess for a Shadowrun history lesson.

Actually, is there a good place to get a crash course on shadowrun through the editions?

The brain runs on roughly 25 watts. A whole human body (assuming a 70 kilo body), is emitting like a 100 Watt lightbulb all the time. The Swedish Space Agency got a stable WiFi link with space (420 kilometers) using a 6 watt amplifier. A human body has literally dozens of times the bioelectrical power necessary to run a short range WiFi emitter. There's no reason that a human could't interface with a BlueTooth using their own Zeta Waves, they just don't.

That's not true in the way you think it is. Electricity in metals (and semiconductors is simple: electrons flow around, and charge just moves, without any secondary effects. In solution it's all ions instead, and they all have chemical gradients as well as electrical potentials, and all sort of weird secondary effects from concentrations, and that's just intracellular transmission. Synapses have their own weirder and poorly understood mechanics. Also, the speeds are totally different; wires conduct at speeds like the speed of light, nerves transmit at speeds like the speed of car. Seriously, it tops out at ~220 MPH. Also, frequency: nerves just stop working above ~1kHz. Moving outside your nervous system you get even less well defined effects.
The points on wattage are only as true as similar statements about a handful of salt in a bucket of water (where they would also be true, but not like you'd think).

None of that undermines the idea of Technomancers, butthe real world doesn't provide good justification.

[CatharzGodfoot]

The Swedish Space Agency got a stable WiFi link with space (420 kilometers) using a 6 watt amplifier.

Not that this kills the argument, but the SSC got a stable WiFi link with a high altitude balloon at a maximum distance of 310 km. The altitude of said balloon maxed out at just under 30 km.


Anyway, technomancers are not even close to being the silliest part of a Tolkein-esque 1980's-future fantasy RPG. In fact, the thing that really annoys me is how little magical stuff like electrokinesis can interact with technology.

[sabs]

I read your end of Matrix stuff. I liked big chunks of it. And I liked the writing style. naturally haven't gotten to play a character with it, or play test it.. so it's hard to know how well it flows.

My first blush fix to the matrix involved changing everything back to stat+skill, and programs limiting hits. Even still, it's a very borked system. Even though I love the idea of hackers.

[hermit]

Similarily, I have no problem with naked hacking, but I have a big problem that you need to be a superhuman power mutant not-mage to do it and it gains you powers like Neo from Matrix.

Handled differently, this concept could have been cool. As it is, it is shit. Same with SURGE; it could have been like Wild Cards, but instead it was furries'r'us.

[Kot]

Anyway, technomancers are not even close to being the silliest part of a Tolkein-esque 1980's-future fantasy RPG. In fact, the thing that really annoys me is how little magical stuff like electrokinesis can interact with technology.

Well, if you take into account that Magic is available since ~60 years , and it's only ancient magic, with attempts at making it more modern...
It's just that there was not enough time to fully interface magic with tech.

And games tend to draw a line between magic and tech on balance purposes.

[raben-aas]

Just wanted to chime in with the Technomancer hate

Carry on.

(@hermit: I don't think there is a way to handle anything TM-like in a way that I would like it. For me, "basic" SR was as weird as I wanted the game to be. Any more weird, and I start to shudder. Yeah, I keep shuddering a lot, but more about Emergence and Companion (new and old). In my games, I try to focus more on the cyberpunk and cyberware/tech side of things – only to be confronted by yet another superweird uber-rare PC concept by any one of my players. Yeah, I tend to say "no way" to these, but those ghouled were-drake technomancer e-ghost dryads get on my nerves).

[sabs]

I found my copy of Shadow Companion last night. I had a warm happy glow reading it. They had the section on the RAD. The OMEGA clearance, the special files with IC that triggered electronic feedback that fried a cyberdeck if it didn't have the special chips. So much goodness.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Anyway, technomancers are not even close to being the silliest part of a Tolkein-esque 1980's-future fantasy RPG. In fact, the thing that really annoys me is how little magical stuff like electrokinesis can interact with technology.

Well, if you take into account that Magic is available since ~60 years , and it's only ancient magic, with attempts at making it more modern...
It's just that there was not enough time to fully interface magic with tech.

And games tend to draw a line between magic and tech on balance purposes.

Or do they? Magic can apparently flow very well through certain types of cyberware, most notably cyber eyes. Some augmentations even make mages better at working magic. This works to such an extent that most mages are willing to take a one point hit to magic to accommodate such augmentations.

Absolutely nothing stops a mage from being an effective hacker. They can sink the skill points and buy the expensive gear just like anyone else. Mages can still command drone armies, wield assault rifles, wear power armor, and drive fancy hovercraft.

The only thing they can't do is technomancy (except in the bullshit cyberzombie creation process, which has very little to do with game balance).

[hermit]

I don't think there is a way to handle anything TM-like in a way that I would like it. For me, "basic" SR was as weird as I wanted the game to be. Any more weird, and I start to shudder. Yeah, I keep shuddering a lot, but more about Emergence and Companion (new and old). In my games, I try to focus more on the cyberpunk and cyberware/tech side of things – only to be confronted by yet another superweird uber-rare PC concept by any one of my players. Yeah, I tend to say "no way" to these, but those ghouled were-drake technomancer e-ghost dryads get on my nerves

*SIGH*

I know. I hate the Companion, it's full of wholly unnecessary shit. Some is useful, but that book should have "GM special allowance required" stamped on the cover (which also easily is the best thing ybout the SRC).

I think naked hacking should be a basic skill. You just improvise programs, you need rules for on the fly programming, and while hard it should be possible according to the rules, possibly with a special skill. There should be cyber and bio helping it, and maybe attribute changing stuff, but that should be it. It should definitly not require being some kind of wacko X-Men mutant. then it would be good. Anything else is shit.

I'd ban vampires, non-metahumans, and technomancers on your table if I was your GM. Maybe you should, too.

Or do they? Magic can apparently flow very well through certain types of cyberware, most notably cyber eyes. Some augmentations even make mages better at working magic. This works to such an extent that most mages are willing to take a one point hit to magic to accommodate such augmentations.

The haindwaive is: If you pay essence for it, it is part of your body. Also, Illusion spells alter what sensors and eyes see, but that's nowhere near the interactiveness Designate requires. It used to be limited to sensors, and even that is going a bit far if you ask me.

Absolutely nothing stops a mage from being an effective hacker.

But there is no "hack the Matrix" spell. That would be a problem. A mage learning a non-magic skill is not.

[fectin]

Maybe you could fluff that up by saying that magic works purely in the realm of the abstract, and technology always has lower level underpinnings. So you could use electrical magic to hack hardware, but the electrical field has no inherent meaning, so you have to manually screw with it, in binary/opcode, at the operating speed, without screwing up even once. Which is unpossible. That does have broader ramifications, namely that technology can trigger off magic, but basically not the other way. I'm not sure that's ever avoidable though.
Of course, if there's a canonical answer why, this is kind of useless. I just like having an actual system so you can actually figure out the interactions by logic instead of fiat.

[Username17]

Magic flows from the astral to the material. Things that are more "natural" or more "alive" have stronger auras and mana channels into them easier. Things that are more processed become less similar to their auras and the auras die back. This makes their "object resistance" go up. "Things" that don't exist at all, but are merely relationships between things (such as electronic data) don't exist on the astral at all and you can't do anything about them (spirits other than Flesh Forms can't even see them).

So you can make a tree transparent fairly easily. The tree is all natural and shit, and mana flows into it easily. A transparency transformation would only need one hit to affect a tree. Making someone invisible in such a way that a drone camera couldn't see them but their retinas still stopped light and allowed them to see would be hard. You'd have to make the invisibility field strong enough that it could affect the highly processed drone camera with its associated weak aura - and that would require 4 hits. You couldn't edit yourself out of the drone's camera memory banks with magic at all, because the data construct that represents a series of pictures of you in the drone's field of view is not a thing. There's just a series of ones and zeros, and the meaning that conveys a picture of a real human being is entirely arbitrary. Magic cannot recognize that part of the data as different from the whole because it is not.

Any attempt at creating a spell that interacts directly with the electronic data rather than sensory inputs will automatically fail, because there is no distinct "data" aura for a spell to interact with.

---

The SR2 Companion was one of my favorite books. Point Based CharGen was such an improvement over the Priorities thing that it's hard to explain. They also did it in a really elegant way where they got SR characters to come out to 100 points even. That was great. The SR3 Companion was a huge step backwards. From incomprehensible Dwarf fappery (they cost less points than the attribute bonuses they granted and gave higher net bonuses than any other metatype while costing less) on through to a gibbering hash job of Ghoul Transformation shit that mathematically did not add up to the stats that the NPC Ghouls got - it was bad. But the worst part wasn't even the fiddly bits - it was just that SR3 decided to screw around with the skill system a bit and now PCs no longer added up to 100 points. That was a huge mistake.

The SR4 Companion is a train wreck. Not because it lets you play weird character types, but because the rules are unplaytested, unproofed, and ill conceived. I mean, what the fuck? You can seriously have an event happen to you where you get three hundred points of Karma debt. I am not making that up. Did anyone think for even a second about what that would actually entail?

When we made Street Magic, I argued for including rules for playing an Inhbitation Spirit. Because those are the only kind of playable spirit. Because they have human senses and physical bodies, and can't teleport but can totally read. Rob shot me down, on the grounds that that stuff should be saved for the Companion. Hell, I wanted to throw in a one-liner about how Inhabitation Free Spirits gained karma normally to leave the option open for easy inclusion later. I got shot down on that too. And here when I open up the SR4 Companion, what do I get? Playable Free Spirits. Except... they aren't playable. Like, at all. The rules are gobbledegook. Written by someone who didn't know how spirits worked at all and appears to have assigned points costs to things at random. Worse, you can try to play all the completely unplayable spirits like Materialization spirits, but Inhabitation is not on the list. Yeah, the only spirit in the entire game that actually makes sense as a PC, and it's the one that Aaron decided to not allow. Why? Who the fuck knows?

Aarons' craptastic attempts to make Free Spirits and AIs playable in the Companion are the only reason that Ancient History's fucking pathetic attempt to write Vampire and Ghoul rules aren't the worst thing in the book. Which is an achievement, because those rules have Ghouls having a contact vector and causing such a brutal infection that there is essentially no chance in hell of you resisting it at all, and in fact being o obviously written without reading the disease rules that they will seriously leave you paralyzed for months after your transformation is complete. And which will leave you with more Karma Debt than you will likely see even in a long campaign. What the fuck?

And if those two turds weren't in the book, the Metatype Variants by Lars are in the same book. He apparently felt that it wasn't confusing enough that metavariants had a regionally distinctive appearance and minor tat mods that you paid a slight premium for. No, Lars wanted them to all have crazy unique rules that were like mandatory SURGE mutations, but then to spice it up he had the costs of the SURGE mutations have absolutely nothing to do with the costs of the Metavariants. So sometimes it's a package deal on some mutant powers you might not be totally happy with but at least you get a discount, and other times you're just flushing points down the drain because you could literally just be the same base metatype and take all the exact SURGE powers and save points doing that for no reason. FUCK!

That book is a train wreck. Poorly thought out ideas with no playtesting, proofreading, or introspection. It is worse than a waste of paper, because just the fact that it exists and is totally shitty means that it is seriously difficult to get any traction behind an actually sane set of rules for playing a Muppet Elf or a Ghoul. And that is a fucking tragedy, because those characters can be very cool.

-Username17

[Ancient History]

The SR4 Companion is a train wreck. Not because it lets you play weird character types, but because the rules are unplaytested, unproofed, and ill conceived. I mean, what the fuck?

I take my fair share of the blame for tht. RC stuff was relatively rushed and didn't get the playtesting it really needed, but I should still have done better.

You can seriously have an event happen to you where you get three hundred points of Karma debt. I am not making that up. Did anyone think for even a second about what that would actually entail?

In hindsight, I was a prick about this. The development mandate from above was pretty thin on the ground, so it was basically me and whoever I was arguing with at that point. What I should have done - I had considered this in an earlier draft but rejected it - was make people buy each of their fucking powers. I didn't do that, so the costs became astronomical. Mea culpa.

Aarons' craptastic attempts to make Free Spirits and AIs playable in the Companion are the only reason that Ancient History's fucking pathetic attempt to write Vampire and Ghoul rules aren't the worst thing in the book. Which is an achievement, because those rules have Ghouls having a contact vector and causing such a brutal infection that there is essentially no chance in hell of you resisting it at all, and in fact being o obviously written without reading the disease rules that they will seriously leave you paralyzed for months after your transformation is complete. And which will leave you with more Karma Debt than you will likely see even in a long campaign. What the fuck?

The angst from being a ghoul has to come from somewhere! No, seriously this was another tremendous fuckup on my part. The contact vector should have been an Injection vector. The math for the diseases I just flipping did wrong.

That book is a train wreck. Poorly thought out ideas with no playtesting, proofreading, or introspection. It is worse than a waste of paper, because just the fact that it exists and is totally shitty means that it is seriously difficult to get any traction behind an actually sane set of rules for playing a Muppet Elf or a Ghoul. And that is a fucking tragedy, because those characters can be very cool.

-Username17

And yet...and I hate this...Runner's Companion sold well. They reprinted it more than once. RC is proof that people will buy bad rules, even if they have no intention of playing them. It's not that people don't know what good food tastes like, it's just that they're still willing to buy junk food.

[hermit]

Yeah, the only spirit in the entire game that actually makes sense as a PC, and it's the one that Aaron decided to not allow. Why? Who the fuck knows?

Aaron seems to be not very much on the logical side of things. So these are his work? Did Aaron write the vampire rules too?

That book is a train wreck. Poorly thought out ideas with no playtesting, proofreading, or introspection. It is worse than a waste of paper, because just the fact that it exists and is totally shitty means that it is seriously difficult to get any traction behind an actually sane set of rules for playing a Muppet Elf or a Ghoul. And that is a fucking tragedy, because those characters can be very cool.

Signed.

And yet...and I hate this...Runner's Companion sold well. They reprinted it more than once. RC is proof that people will buy bad rules, even if they have no intention of playing them. It's not that people don't know what good food tastes like, it's just that they're still willing to buy junk food.

It'S part of the core rules. And stuff people *like* is in that book. A good friend of mine likes her muppet elf character a lot. She'd want it for the muppet elves (though she took a look at that book and was so offended she quit SR4 forever and now is playing Deathwatch). Similarily, I wanted the advanced lifestyles and the new qualities, and SURGE, and variants. You have to houserule a lot, and you have to cut out a lot. I HATE this book. But it's part of the fucking CORE RULES. What are people to do aout that? That was where I started to be really, really angry at SR4. And actually, that'S where the quality decline of SR began. Well, no, that was the shitfest that was the Arsenal, what with 2 combat helos, 2 fucking segways and one (1) actual car that people would actually want to drive. What the fuck. Emotitoys! some 15 pages wasted on unnecessary crap like chemistry rules, but none on actually sensible things like cars or vans or other things runners actually use. Vehicle modding rules that lack several important things (carrying drones on a van that are not in a launch bay, like ... every ground drone).

So yes, there are turds among the core rules. I ranted my part about that back n the day. But those are core rules. You bneed them to play the fucking game. Of course they sell.

[sabs]

I like Arsenal, only in that it has modification rules. They're not good modification rules, but they aren't terrible. As long as you're not trying to break the game.

Runner's companion is just pain. The stupid dual natured rules, the messed up Karma Gen (*points at AH), the Ghouls, the Vampires. The Free SPirit rules that are SO bad.. we have monthly arguments about them on Dumpshock. But, I love the idea of Advanced Lifestyles, Sapient Characters, some of the qualities.

Aaron's Free Spirit rules got changed on him from when he turned them in, to when they got printed. The cost for the race changed.

Still, AI and Free Spirits as written are terrible. And Free Spirits are unplayable in a BP game, and crazy powerful in a Karmagen game.

And yet, AH is still one of my favorite Shadowrun authors His fiction is actually good, and he actually knows the background well.

[hermit]

Apart from the vampire stuff, yes, I like his writing too. Maybe I also like some of Aaron's writing, if he does stuff other than rules which clearly are not what he is good at. But those rules sets both are terrible. I wouldn't come down on Aaron as I do if he hadn't been such a dick. I can deal with forceful arguments. I can take in the way I deal out (I hope). But I really loathe smug, self-righteous assholes who 'take it to PM', deliver some stupid macho tough guy statement like "if you have a promblem with me take it up with me" (who else? And I have issues with his work, or had up until then, not him) and then throw straw man after straw man at you and then call you out for trolling.

[Surgo]

I just want to say that I really respect someone who can look at something they did and go "yeah, I fucked this up". Don't see that too often among game designers.