From: flashlife@kpc.com
Reply-To: flashlife@kpc.com
Errors-To: flashlife-request@kpc.com
Subject: Flashlife V3 #3
To: flashlife@kpc.com

From: Carl Rigney (moderator) <flashlife-request@kpc.com>


Flashlife  Fri, 3 Jan, 1992   Volume 3 : Issue 3

Today's topics:

  A New Home					(Moderator)
  Ka*ge						(Brian Bankler)
  Mages and how to make them behave.		(Scott Baker)
  The power of mages				(Mary Kuhner)
  Reining in mages				(Laurence Brothers)
  Re: killing fire-support mages		(Carl Rigney)
  Questions and Combat Rules			(Caspar Facius)
  Weapons, spirits, movement, spells		(Caspar Facius)
  Things that go BOOM and the Astral Limit around Earth (WANDERER)
  Program Frames				(Scott Baker)
  Simsense vs jacking in			(Laurence Brothers)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 3 Jan 92 23:59:59 EDT
From: flashlife-request@kpc.com (Moderator)
Subject: A New Home

I've moved the home of the Flashlife digest from netcom.com to kpc.com
so that I can give it more attention.  I'm hoping that I'll now be able
to send it out bi-weekly instead of quarterly, if there's enough
quality submissions.  This issue clears out the backlog.

I'd like to ask that people check their spelling and format before
submitting.  The best format is block paragraphs like I use with NO
indentation, no longer than 72 characters per line, one blank line
between paragraphs.  Anything else is subject to return for
reformatting if I'm not in the mood to do it myself.  And PLEASE use a
meaningful subject line.  Subjects like "Questions"  or "Re: Flashlife
Vol 3 #2" will be rejected from now on.  Please try to avoid long
rambling letters covering every subject under the sun - keep it short,
sharp and interesting to read, not just interesting to write!

If you can't take a moment to check your spelling and think up a
meaningful subject line then don't be surprised when I take only a
moment to reject it.

Submissions should be mailed to flashlife@kpc.com, and add/drop/change
requests should go to flashlife-request@kpc.com.  The old addresses at
AMD and Netcom will forward for a while, but please spread the news
that Flashlife's home is now at KPC.COM.  For people with mailers that
don't understand internet addressing, you can reach me through uunet,
amdcad, apple, decwrl and mips, e.g. uunet!kpc!flashlife-request.

So thank you for your patience at seeing only two digests in 7 months.
The new year promises to be much more active.

--
Carl Rigney
flashlife-request@kpc.com


--------------------------

Date: Sat, 7 Sep 91 19:56:18 EDT
From: milord@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Brian Bankler)
Subject: Ka*ge

KA*GE (kah ge') n. [Japanese]  1.  Shadow or shade.  2.  A japlish
(slang) term for anything pertaining to "shadowrunning" (Kage crawler:
shadowrunner, KageCorp: a company that doesn't want its doings known).
3.  A new magazine from AWOL productions.

Ka*ge (from now on I will leave out the dot...) is the shadowrun
magazine and was introduced at origins.  Subtitled "A survival guide to
an impolite society" it is a magazine with the promise of something
good.  Unfortionately, that potential hasn't been completely
exploited.  The magazine is quite good, however, in presenting ideas.
Just be prepared to have to work the numbers out yourself.

Inside Issue #0 they had
	1.  Introduction,
	2.  Sysop's notes,
	3.  Fiction,
	4.  New Contacts, Location Archetypes, and a new archetype,
	5.  Q&A,
	6.  an NPC profile,
	7.  New vehicle stats,
	8.  New gear and
	9.  Rumors.

The introduction and sysop's notes (and all of the shadowtalk located
through the magazine) is a nice piece of writing that captures the feel
pretty well.  I picked up some new slang that works pretty well.  Of
course, I also picked some up from New Jack City...

The fiction ("Squasher and Squeeker") didn't do much for me.  It
seemed very straight forward and every good runner can see through it.

The new contacts and archetype are good ideas, however, they are poorly
built.  Still, as I said before, they provide good ideas.  The location
archetype is interesting (High Security Warehouse) but didn't live up
to it's name against a team that I gm for.  Well, that is what runners
are supposed to do, I guess.

The scenario (Fishing Season) given in the middle screamed of a fairly
good (but fairly standard) idea that suffers from the standard problem
of skill based games:  You have no way to gauge how a team will do.
There is no way to compare teams except by knowing them (unlike level
based systems).  On a level based systems I would put this as a fairly
simple (novice) run.  Of course, if you modify it to your team's power
level, you could get quite a lot out of it.

The NPC profile of Ernesto Dante is very good.  The box with his
statistics made me sick, though.  Not only had the rules from the
Grimoire not been paid attention to, I really wonder how many rating
four power foci there are kicking around....Also, the scenario ideas
for use with Dante are fairly good.

The Q&A section was fairly straightforward.  I skimmed it, because they
did have a rule on falling damage that seems to work well enough.
Falling damage is (Stories*2)D(Stories).  One story is three meters.
You can use dodge (twisting in the air) and impact armor.

The new gear reads just like two more pages out of the Street Samurai
guide.  The one nice impact is that if you (the GM) get this, it is a
fairly good way to have technology advance.  The players wont see the
stuff until they run into it (or hear about it...) and then they'll
want to get their greedy little hands on it.

Finally, the writing on the wall gives brief little news tidbits (like
the end off the FASA scenarios).  Some of these could undoubtedly turn
into plots with a bit of work.


Overall, I found myself liking some of the ideas to be found between
the covers of Kage; but disliked some of the technical errors (not
knowing the Grimoire, for example).  Of course, feel free to consider
my writing biased when I comment on the poorly built archetypes...I
don't run vanilla shadowrun, but it seems to me that any runner who has
a poorly built archetype will die to easily, and that means that I
either have to 1) accept the fact that the character in question WILL
die (and shouldn't be running) or 2) do some kind of twister dance to
let them survive or 3) give everyone an easy time.  While it makes
perfect sense in the real world for a free-lance reporter to have a
willpower of 3, he will be toasted by the first mage that gets the idea
in their head.  And I've put some harsh restraints on mages already.

The magazine is quarterly and I forget the cost, but it struck me as
fairly expensive.  Maybe future issues will correct some of the
mistakes I see, but I don't really care actually.  I didn't get it as a
"technical supplement" but as a brainstorming tool.  And, it helps me
well enough.  I wouldn't rely on it as a sole source, but it makes a
nice back up for those nights when I say "well, now what?."  It has
even helped a bit in my long term campaign that has had a slow
developing (around 40 sessions so far) plot.

All in all, if you are in the market for some new ideas, I would
consider it.  Flashlife has given me far more, but this has some fresh
outlooks... and my players don't read it.



--------------------------


Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1991 00:20 CDT
From: "Scott L. Baker" <BAKER@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu>
Subject: Mages and how to make them behave...

I have found that a Physical Adept can cause a *few* problems for mages, 
especially with some other niceties...

For example, if you got a pesty mage add this new weapon...

AreiTech International & Ares Arms announce the NDU-007x

The NDU-007x (Neural Disruption Unit) emits an alpha wave beam along the same 
wavelengths as those noticed in Magically active individuals. The effect is 
that your mage becomes *Majorly* distracted and begins to suffer some damage.

In game terms? The weapon does Stun damage to mundanes, Physical damage to 
Magically active folks as well as causing a minor distraction.

Range? Use the range of a heavy pistol, it is the size of a rifle, fires 4 
shots per power pack, and does 4M3 damage.

[In a follow-up message Scott changes the previous paragraph
to the latter, but I like his first way better. --CDR]

The NDU-007x uses the range of a sniper rifle. Blast radius is 5
meters, and one shot per combat turn (any faster and it be the size of
a small car....)

Trust me, once a mage gets nailed with this, added to the general 
predisposition of Security teams to shoot the most magic-like person first and 
your magicians will begin to understand the "price of power" bit.

One last note, I use the NDU-007x sparingly, it costs 250,000% and is VERY 
RARE, I tend to use it as an equalizer, not as a Mage Killer.

Blender: What EXACTLY is that funny smell?
[Intelligence Roll -- Passed]
GM: Well, it's kindof like rotting flesh.
Storm: And where is it comming?
[Surprise roll, the team loses]
GM: From that goul that just rose out of the sewer in front of you,
    Oh, by the way, he has an "aquired" gun that seems to be spitting 
    lead at you...
Howard [Blender is his PC]: You love this don't you?

Devilish grin... what do you think?

		Scott Baker

--- I don't kill my PC, I just run them to the limit...that's what they 
wanted, that's what they get ---



--------------------------


Date: Fri, 13 Sep 91 17:58:36 -0700
From: Mary K. Kuhner <mkkuhner@genetics.washington.edu>
Subject: The power of mages

I don't know of a Shadowrun group that hasn't had trouble with the
power of the mageborn sooner or later.  We've had a lot of arguments
about the possibility of societal control, but I personally do not
think, with the rules as they are, that society *can* effectively
control Shadowrun mages without becoming a remarkably vile place, and
maybe not even then.  Mages can control other mages, but that leaves
little place for mundanes.

I think that a society in which mages are hated, feared and persecuted
is particularly bad for keeping them under control, although it may
help keep PC mages from dominating the party.  Persecuted people
notoriously band together, and a society in which mages are heavily
persecuted will be a society with militant, insular, paranoid bands of
mages in it.  Consider the political behavior of the state of Israel.
Now give the Israelis really overwhelming force and perfect military
intelligence, and consider what will happen to the Arab nations.

I'd rather have mages divided among many causes, companies, political
movements and so forth, and for that to happen they mustn't be treated
so badly they can't function in society.

After many discussions, I personally think that the only way to
maintain a fairly normal society which is not utterly dominated by
mages is to revise or re-interpret the rules.  We drastically limited
the power of the mageborn, and it's worked well for us in a long-term
campaign.  Both my mageborn and my non-mageborn characters remain very
playable after 19 months and 70-80 development karma.

Mary Kuhner mkkuhner@genetics.washington.edu


--------------------------


Date: Thu, 14 Nov 91 09:47:47 -0500
From: quasar@puddle.bellcore.com (Laurence R. Brothers)
Subject: Reining in mages

Any good suggestions? If one allows anything resembling the astral
space rules, it seems very difficult. Most random locations will not
have any sort of magical defenses, and magic is supposed to be rare
enough that your average low-to-medium security location will probably
have only a low level of defense -- wards, a watcher or low level
elemental, etc -- stuff that a good mage can simply knock down in the
course of a short-duration mission.

Even ignoring site security concerns (you could change the rules to
make, say, watchers last a much longer time, and make wards and
barriers harder to penetrate), it is very annoying to have a player be
able to perform astral surveillance on anyone who doesn't have megayen
to spare on round-the-clock magical bodyguards. Even if the target's
home and work locations are defended, he still has to get from point A
to point B.

Now of course I can send opposition of requisite strength to cause my
mages problems without too much difficulty. But you can't have everyone
in the world be magically defended; there's not much I can think of to
do to prevent a player mage from eventually being able to astrally
snipe on almost any opposition who isn't of the very highest level.

In my current campaign, I'm dealing with the problem by having such an
intricate situation that the players don't know what is really going on
yet, but that is not a generally adequate solution...

Laurence R. Brothers (quasar@bellcore.com)
Bellcore -- Computer Graphics and Interactive Media


--------------------------


Date: Sun, 17 Nov 91 21:23:21 PST
From: cdr@kpc.com (Carl Rigney)
Subject: Re: killing fire-support mages

> I have problems with POWER mages in my camaign.  I understand
> the reasoning behind removing Combat spells, but how would you
> fill the logical whole left by those spells?  Do you have a
> ratiuonalization in game terms?  Finally, could you just
> elaborate a wee bit on your whole concept.  Thanks.  I ask
> 'cause I have considered the same thing and scrapped it as
> impractical and difficult to justify.

What logical hole?  Combat spells are just D&D, not historical.  Myth
is full of evil eyes and curses, but I don't recall any fireballs, and
certainly no magical microwave death beams.

I've actually been contemplating running a game where there are NO
overt spells, where magic is subtle enough that you could choose not to
believe in it if you tried hard enough, and it left no evidence.  That
might be to weak for players weaned on D&D, but usually magic was used
more for things like healing, hunting, fertility, divination, that sort
of thing.  Healing magic meant getting well in a week instead of a
month or not at all, NOT flesh re-knitting itself in seconds.

Urban Magic is things like finding parking places, having the lights go
green for you, not getting run over or mugged or missing your bus,
jamming guns when they shoot at you, running into an old friend when
you need a friendly shoulder.  On a run, its things like finding a door
unlocked, guards who aren't paying attention, seeing the shadow of
someone approaching in a cross corridor before he sees yours,
alertness, decisiveness, and focus.  Its NOT a soul-powered grenade
launcher, to my taste.

Now, GMs with combat-happy mage players may find that too light for
their needs, I'm not claiming its for anyone.  But making the mages
good at doing things the wireboys can't and not good at doing things
the wireboys are all about, seems a big win to me.

--
Carl Rigney
cdr@kpc.com


--------------------------


Date: Thu, 5 Dec 91 15:30:53 +0100
From: cfa@dde.dk (Caspar Facius)
Subject: Questions and Combat Rules

Greetings Fellow Dekers.
This is my first article on the net, and i am not quit use to the terms
witch you are using, so please barre with my.

First question: We wore playing Shadowrun late last night, and (great
game by the way) we had a quite annoying discussion of, weather someone
standing and firing against a vehicle wood get the same terrain
modifyeres as if he was in the car.

Second question: Has anybody sean "Riggers Black Book" yet, and if
someone has, cut he please send a review. Please!

Third question: dose any of you people allow character generation using
alpa/beta cyperware.

Forth question: what is the minimum range of standard and Air-timed
granades.

Now here is a little goodi for those of you who has got feat up with
the existing combat rules.

Armor:

Light armor give's 1 autosucces and its rating to BODY

Heavy armor give's 2 autosucceses and its rating to BODY

Autofire:

Wen firing on full auto the shuts will be treaded as bursts,
each burst will be treaded as a single shut with rekyl
modifyeres.
This means that wen firing an assault riffel on  full auto
the target numbers will be:burst1 5, burst2 7 and burst3 10.
You use the appropriate skill and roll the dice 1 time pr.
burst.

Type      Max Bursts    Rounds    Rekyl Mod.     Damage Mod.
Gun          -            1           -               -
SMG          2            6         +1/+3          +1/-/-
AR           3            9        +1/+3/+6        +2/-/-
Heavy W      4           12      +2/+6/+12/+16    +3/+1/-

Rounds:

Fletched Round go against impact armor

Explosive Rounds +1 on Damage (Ares Predator 4M2 With Exp.
4S2)

Bursts:

Burst = 3 Rounds

All Weapons get +1 on Power and Rekyl

mrk. MP's can only fire bursts

Rekyl Compensator:

Rekyle compensator's works on every burst, wether you fire on
full auto or just single bursts.

Smartgun Link:

It is possibily to use 2 smartgun links simultaneous, thou it
will cost the full amount of essens (1 point).

Granades:

Standard   5D2
I.P.E      6D2
Mini       5D2

[These grenades are much too deadly in my opinion, real-world grenades
almost never actually kill.  These are cinematic grenades.  But then
some people prefer to run Shadowrun in a cinematic style, so adjust to
taste. --CDR]


--------------------------


Date: Wed, 11 Dec 91 12:28:58 +0100
From: cfa@dde.dk (Caspar Facius)
Subject: Weapons, spirits, movement, spells

1. Have you guys any rules about the minimum strength of caring and
firing heavy weapons.I mean, can a human fire a MMG standing?

2. We have a MAJOR problemo with spirits and there immunity to normal
weapons, and i wash thinking about the possibility of having
bullits(and spures) made out that reare expensive materiale(forgot the
name, but it costs 88K pr. unit). And thereby nailing thus friggers.

3. When someone is to get away, and decites to run can he 1) run
Quickness * Movmentmod.  pr. action or 2) Quickness * Movement pr.
rount.

4. When using a spellock, dose it cost 1 karma point each time a new
spell is being held.

--------------------------


Date: Thu, 12 Sep 91 11:32:54 EST
From: WANDERER@MTUS5.BITNET
Subject: Things that go BOOM and the Astral Limit around Earth

Hey-ho back again,

Had trouble getting this for a while, but I'm back on the digest.
Anyway, I've decided to throw an interesting twist on the game by
bringing in stuff from the horror genre, specifically the Cthulhu
stuff.  Why?  What is my rationalization for mixing a 1930's game with
a 2050's game?  Quite simple.

If y'all have read the "Bottled Demon" adventure, you know that
[CENSORED FOR LACK OF SPOILER WARNING -- CDR].  In one of the most
recent adventures, FASA makes the statement that they didn't tell why
this stuff was happening because they are going to use it in future
products, like they are doing with the "Harlequin" stuff.  Oh well, I
don't want to wait for it to come out, so I'm forging ahead.  So first
we have background about magickal power coming from some twisted alien
source beyond the comprehension of most sentient races.

The second part comes from the bit about why mages can't astral travel
beyond a certain limit.  After that, they escape the protective
boundaries of the earth's magickal field.  Beyond that, earth magick
doesn't work because the influence is too weak.  I took this from Piers
Anthony's "Incarnations of Immortality" series, also set slightly in
the future where magick has returned.  Lovecraft's critters come from
beyond the boundaries of the earth originally, so of course their
magick is alien to earth-critters.  Because the magick isn't native to
earth critters, they suffer the nasty side effects from a totally
different sort of magickal drain that comes from serving as a conduit
for alien energies, thus the increased power and the damaging side
effects.

Mages may be powerful and samurai may have assault cannons, but if you
give the Cthulhu critters the powers of magick resistance and
regeneration, then they are tough enemies for the shadowrunners.  Throw
in the secret societies that go along and some magickal flukes and you
have something that needn't be as immediately threatening to life as
the insect shamans and the Brotherhood, but you have something far more
insidious and that has been around for far longer.  Also has more of a
hermetic rather than shamanic feel to it.  Considering that a great
majority of the magickal community in our 1991 USA has shamanic
leanings, it serves the same that the shamanic threat has for the
hermetically-oriented folks in the UK. (At least my experience has been
such.)

APDS rounds with acid/nerve agent gel inside?  Cool idea, but I'm not
certain how it would work. In case some of y'all don't know, APDS
rounds are Armor Piercing Discarding Sabot rounds.  Ok, what does this
mean in a practical sense?  Well, the explanation that I've gotten from
ballisticians in both the civilian and military realms is that the
armor piercing part comes from a steel spike that is sometimes treated
with teflon.  The spike is then encased in plastic to make the diameter
the same as the normal bullet.  When the round is fired, the plastic
and steel leave the barrel like a normal bullet.  The plastic falls
away (that's the Discarding Sabot part) and the steel spike continues
on.  So you have something with an extremely small diameter at the
point of impact, which is what makes ballistic armor less effective.
The staging is increased becuase it is a lot more difficult to
differentiate between the amount of damage done with a steel spike.  It
doesn't really matter if it hits bone or organs, it still does the
relatively same amount of damage.  If a lead round comes in, it will
still do a lot of damage, but it will mushroom out and spread damage if
it hits soft tissue, whereas if it hits bone, it will still spread out,
but the resultant damage is different.

I like the subsonics idea.  How about something like a white-noise
generator that does this, but is small as a grenade and can be thrown.
Given the advances in tech, I can see this happening easily.

For the active imaging system, would the emissions point be the
cybereyes?  How would you power the item? How is cyberware powered
anyway?

Andrew - Hello there! Fancy meeting you here.  Yeah, we bitch about
their editing here too.  We had a guy graduate from our Scientific and
Technical Communications program with a strong background in graphic
design who did up a portfolio of gaming stuff with a lot of redesigned
Shadowrun and BattleTech stuff. Looked really good and was far better
than the stuff FASA puts out.  They told him they weren't hiring anyone
who hadn't worked in the field for at least three years and that they
felt that their editorial staff was in no need of extra help, thank you
very much.  FASA may put out good ideas that look great, but the
substance leaves much to be desired in the revision process.
Especially when it comes to weights and ranges for weapons.

Marlowe - Werewolf assassin?  Why didn't you say so.  Of course you
gotta use mucho explosives to kill anything that regenerates.  Blowing
things up is fun indeed, in fact, we have a summer get together here
where we shoot off fireworks and blow things up for the fun of it.  I
suppose Shadowrunning is an even better excuse for it.  My comments
were from the viewpoint that running the shadows is something that has
to be done with professionalism if you want to live long.  Part of the
professionalism is knowing as much as possible about what you might
need to do to accomplish an objective.  If you don't have the knowledge
and skill, a perfectly acceptable alternative is to overkill in order
to make certain.  Did anybody have a merc as a contact?  if I remember
correctly, most merc archetypes have some sort of demo skill, even if
someone makes it themselves, demo is a logical skill to take.  Another
way that a fixer could have handled it was to call someone who knew and
then get back to you.  That, of course, depends on the personality of
the fixer.

As to the movie "Die Hard", the average New York cop probably has no
skill in demo, but would know that you don't need to use all the
detonators.  He did so in that situation because he didn't perceive a
need for them later and he didn't want the terrorists to get ahold of
them.  No the guys at the bottom of the shaft weren't complaining about
his lack of professionalism.  He wasn't supposed to know demo.  It
wasn't part of his job.  It is part of the job of a merc.  It is part
of the job of a fixer to know people who know about demo.  It is part
of the job of being a shadowrunner to be proficient in as much as
possible because all sorts of skills are needed.  If you don't have
skill in demo, someone else on your team should. Failing that, someone
should know someone who knows something about demo or who can read info
in the public library.  Maybe a decker could get into a military system
that was lower security and get copies of training manuals on demo.
Lots of ways to go about it.

Phone up public data net?  Well, how about getting in touch with the
local Shadowland server hub and doing a query?  You might know some
about demo.  What are your respective backgrounds? Why do you know
about demo?  How much do you know about demo?  Wouldn't your characters
have a similar amount of info?  Of course, if you are in the military
and your job is explosive ordnance disposal and you are playing a
standard former wage-mage, than of course your background is greater
than the character's.  But think, these people do this drek for a
living.  They are gonna know more about it.  Then again, we've got one
person who is majoring in geological engineering and knows more about
explosives than does the standard combat mage that she is playing while
she gets used to gaming, but her next character will know demo.  I
allow her current character to have a passing knowledge of demo,
but not more than a level 1 in the skill.

GM: You rest your case?  Where?
Troll PC:  On whatever crate is closest.
Fixer NPC: (simultaneously) No, No, not that one.
Troll PC: (sitting down) Why not?

(sounds of multiple small explosions are heard)

Fixer: That *was* the case of detanators you wanted.


--------------------------


Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1991 00:41 CDT
From: "Scott L. Baker" <BAKER@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu>
Subject: Program Frames

I have a couple of additions that should spice up any system...

C.O.P.S. (Computer Operated Patroling System) --

COPS is a smart program frame. It is a small program that wanders the system 
checking for intruders. If it crosses ANY persona it notifies a dedicated SPU.
The SPU has a log of all authorized users in the system. If the Persona is 
not authorized, the system goes on passive alert and a response Ice is usually 
sent out. Sleaze works on the cop program, against twice the rating of the 
program...

I am working on Gates as of now...

"Meaner, Faster, Smarter, God I hate the technology curve."
-- FastJack, Virtual Realities, FASA.


--------------------------


Date: Thu, 14 Nov 91 09:36:20 -0500
From: quasar@puddle.bellcore.com (Laurence Brothers)
Subject: Simsense vs jacking in

>Having been reading up on my copy of VR, it comes to mind that riggers
>and deckers both work in a similar manner - a simsense link, with the
>autocutoffs either removed totally, or shifted to allow a better 'feel'
>of what's coming through on the link.

I have to assume that decking/rigging is a much deeper level of
neural interface than simsense, otherwise every mage with a few karma
points to spare and not enough interest in getting the next level
of initiation could become a competent decker. A few microseconds
here or there may hurt a hotshot decker, but for ordinary work,
a simsense helmet would be able to do pretty well. So for my campaign,
we suppose that the needed depth of connection necessary to do actual
programming in the matrix must occur in a real cabled connection
to a brain implant, or else suffer very severe "tortoise" penalties.

-Laurence


--------------------------

End of Flashlife
**************************
