WANDERING AGAINThe videogame way of playingI just finished Metal Gear Solid and realised how I shouldn't play Shadowrun like that. Looking at my end results, I realised I used continues over 100 times. "So what?" are you thinking... Well, I realised that in Shadowrun, there aren't any continues. Basically, it seems to show that in a Shadowrun game such an adventure would be very hard. BUT (you knew that was coming) the main reason why I died was because I wasn't careful, and that was because I knew there were continues. At this point, you're wondering what any of this has to do with Shadowrun...Lots of Shadowrun players are video games fans -- both forms of entertainment appeal to the same public. Of course, each type of game affect how the other is played -- you know somebody plays pen and paper rpgs when he doesn't do something in a videogame that would be beneficial to him because "it's not roleplay" (I did see that). Usually the problem doesn't come from people bringing experience from rpgs to video games, but from people bringing experience from video games to rpgs. Sadly, most new players have played video games before trying rpgs, so they are already affected... What kind of problem do that bring? Well, coming back to my Metal Gear exemple, a player of that game doesn't really care about the life of his character -- he'll get continues anyway. So what does that player do when he begins in rpgs? He does expandable characters. Characters which he doesn't really care about, which aren't deep in any way. Then the player do stupid moves with that character, because he's been taught, by videogames, that doing stupid moves doesn't have any impact. The gm gets bored by those stupid moves, so decides to kill the pc on the next stupid move (getting bored of finding excuses and cheating for him not to die). Then what happens? Nothing. The player just thinks "too bad", and goes on to create another character, often surprisingly similar to the last one. He doesn't care about the loss of that character, it is natural for him to have his pcs die and replace them with fresh new ones regularly. After all, that's how it is in video games. What is my point? That's a ver ygood question... Erm... Don't do it. Care about your character. And don't do stupid things. I think that's it... Anyway, I believe there is much more the videogame industry has to learn from rpgs than the other way around... The f'ck'n internetYou know what I hate from the net? Stupid pages that put on stuff that is twice (at least) as powerful as anything that is in the books. But what annoys me even more is when players actually want to use those stuff. Here's a message to all webmasters out there: Buy some common sense! It is very easy to make something powerful ("Hey, that pistol will shoot lasers that do 18D of damage!"), but making it balanced is very hard. Putting a high price doesn'T help much either -- unless it costs near a million bucks (what all player take as A priority it seems...). Making balanced (and interesting) gear is hard. Sadly, I haven't been spared by that tendency... There are two parts on this page which I really hate, because of that reason (there is some more I don't like at all): the new laser weapons and the plasma sword (which, I admit, I have ripped off from something on Blackjack's Shadowrun page on a very uninspired day...). Those stuff are totally out of balance and crazy. Don't use them. I still have them on this page for the sake of archive, and to remember not to do those shits anymore.Anyway, that answers one of the biggest question of this page: "why isn'T there more gear?" Because it's very hard to make anything new and worthwhile for Shadowrun, that's why. Anyway, there are two sourcebooks for all types of gear in Shadowrun, so more isn't really needed, except in very specific aspects (chemicals and computer programs and peripherals (not decker stuff) come to mind). Since most of what is needed has already been done, making more gear seems kinda silly to me... That won't mean I won'T be doing any mor gear stuff -- I will, but in those specific aspects I mentionned. Looking for Conspiracy TheoristsConspiracy theories are one of the most popular feature on my site, but they're hard to make (I miss material to do many of those...). Anyway, if you've got a theory and you want to share it with the world, send it my way. If I get enough good theories, I'll do another CT (mentionning my sources, if they want to, of course). So send those theories my way! |