Archangel

Whoa.  It's like a great big goldfish.  But not.

Knobbled In Action?

Ouch.  I hear that there is some soothing cream for that.

Mr. Projectile.  Welcome back.  We've missed you...

"Bad puppy, in your basket!" ?

And you like 'orange beef'.  Is this a bizarre alternative name for whatever the hell 'beef jerky' is supposed to be?

Er... wtf?

The ultimate man-portable electronic deterrent system of the 2020s looks like Arnold Schwartzenager's leaf blower?

You wish him to wake up in the Benny Hill Show?

::honk honk::

Some characters in campaigns I have ran have lived for years, but the longest lasting was about 3 years IRL and a decade in game time.  And they had not died by the end of the extended campaign either.

Sometimes other roleplayers ask me what I was doing wrong.  The smart ones ask me what I was doing right, to which I generally reply, "I'm not exactly sure."

*** ERROR - Nausea/Content Ratio exceeded ***

Some folk assume that there is an easy way and a hard way to learn lessons.  I disagree.  The easy way often ends up being a much harder way in diguise.

I sometimes wish I could edit my life to take out the stupid things I had done and said, but I also know that with making these mistakes I would probably be even more obtuse and irritating than I am now.

There are a few ways to get round this.  Mostly involving incentive.  How about making their home life a bit more fleshed out.  For example, a character may live in a flop cube, but there are boudn to be a few regulars, or alternatively there may be someone new and interesting in the communal each night or morning depending on which side of daylight of daylight they've been living on.  Incentives?  Some interesting NPCs, and the chance of new opportunities and blagging a free coffee off someone.  Also you are building a sense of cameraderie between the PC and some NPCs.  Similar can be done with shops and stalls that a character might frequent (Cut My Own Throat Dibbler, purveyour of 'suspicious sausages inna bun' and incompetant street venture capitalist from Terry Practchett's Discworld books is a great stock incidental character, for instance).

Another extracurricular activity outside missions is a common nemesis.  Someone the players stung on their last mission, perhaps?  A corporate security chief with a grudge?  A defeated mercenary who wants to 'win back' honor, face, reputation, call it what you will?  Or maybe someone caught in the crossfire or collateral damage of a mission, especially one gone wrong or one that lost containment?

Dropping a nearly insane vigillante on the PCs is also good for a laugh all round.  It might be a scheming cyberpsycho with enough rational thought left to avoid capture; or it may be some vicious, meat-only sociopath with a good knowledge of household chemicals and ambush techniques.  It's also a good opportunity to test basic urban survival skills and instincts.

Sometimes you can make the 'mission' into trying to stay out of the shitstorm called down on them whilst trying to find out is playing silly beggars with them and 'making them stop'.

It is difficult to unite a disparate group of characters outside of direct mission scenarios.  A common problem or enemy is a good starting point though.  Also missions involving travelling on a international ferry or other restricted environments can help bring PCs together.  Extreme environments like prison or polar climates can also be a good 'bonding experience'.

Finally, give them problems that can only be solved by a combination of talents.  For example, a Netrunner may be able to find anyone's criminal record, but only the Fixer will Jonny the Shark's real name is Lucian Vincent Gerard Matthews.  A solo may want to track down the source of a story about of their rivals being in town, but it will need the Media to book an interview with the story's author.

Blended threats are worth further exploration, but I have typed enough in this post for now.

Context, isn't it?  That is why on occasion it seems that some folks consider hair metal, mullets, chrome cyberarms and ridiculously large hand guns as "Cyberpunk" because their only exposition to the concept is via CP2020 and the occasional mainstream film like Robocop, Total Recall, etc.

I have a list if you want to borrow it.

I do not consider myself the Chainsaw of Despair.  I prefer to think of myself as the Laughing Weasel of Awareness Enhancement.

If you can make someone laugh whom takes themselves too seriously then you've made a positive contribution to the world.

Humour beats Truth, but Truthful Humour is the Deadman's Hand in the ongoing poker table of life.

Yes.  These people are generally called "sociopaths".

Seriously though, it is a good point.  I have no overwhelming urge to leave a genetic legacy.  One of my prevailing beliefs is that there are too many folks on the planet as it is, so I'd rather leave something behind to entertain or help folks out.  As a working hypothesis: I think my goal in life is to find out what this is.

Unfortunately I think I have already met and parted company with the one person that I would consider spending the rest of my life with.  For practical purposes I suspect I now value my privacy too highly for most potential partners to cope with.

And yet... I find that I have a lot of love for people on occasion.  Not the whiney selfish bastards most of us tend to be a majority of the time, but those treasured moments when folks demonstrate true alturism, or when a couple truly in love wander on by arm in arm, or any number of those moments that happen all around us every moment of the day if we are lucky enough to see them.

I think it was the Greeks that had a number of different words for love.  Interpretations vary, but there were definitely three or four types: the love of friendship, the love of another individual, the love for family and the familiar, and the uncompromising love for... er, everything I think.

This is the problem with the limited nature of English in this instance.  We've only got the words 'like' and 'love' to express affection for people, objects and abstracts (causes, ideals, religions, etc).

Regardless, in answer to the question above, perhaps some people find themselves (or become) incapable of expressing certain types of love.

Quote

Ahh come on.  She's young, let her have fun.  it might not be all that bad.  However, if i were you i'd kick the twenty year old to within an inch of his pish life.  Thats your daughter he's wi man!

So... let the daughter do what she wants without any guidance, but commit assault on the other chap?  Er.  Right on, brother.

Imagine how enthralled I am at the prospect of you few chaps dishing out the gung-ho advice actually spawning in later life.  You'd better pray for sons, so you can go round and kick the ass of the father whom assaulted your son for canoodling with their daughter.

Or something.

Anyway, peace... and good interview technique DS.  Good choice on the (lack of) beatings too.  ::chuckle::

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The key to faking out the parents is the clammy hands. It's a good non-specific symptom; I'm a big believer in it. A lot of people will tell you that a good phony fever is a dead lock, but, uh... you get a nervous mother, you could wind up in a doctor's office. That's worse than school. You fake a stomach cramp, and when you're bent over, moaning and wailing, you lick your palms. It's a little childish and stupid, but then, so is high school.

- Ferris Bueller

Why yes.  Parenting by denial of resources, self expression and/or freedom leading to the fostering of resentment is such a good parental technique in my experience.

I often wondered what it might be like to have had a parent that decided to sit down and talk to me in a reasonable and non-patronising way about serious problems that cropped up.  Perhaps I could have avoiding some of the more annoying mistakes I have made, whilst still garnering the lesson to be learned.

Of course this relies on one not being a 16 year old and therefore by default at least strongly suspecting anyone over the age of 25 is dead from the neck up.

Bon chance, DS.

Definition?  Tricky.  Certainly there are defining common elements.  Perhaps the most common is that Cyberpunk is almost always set (stories, films, etc) in or inspired (music, art, etc) by modern or near future issues and technolog that is at least slightly more advanced than current technology.  There also seems to be a common theme of opposing or subverting the System, be this law, corporation, government, etc.

In other words it is possible for a story to be cyberpunk without involving direct augmentation of the human body.  Films like Sneakers, Enemy of the State, Alien or Bladerunner do not involve cybernetics AFAIK.  Nor does the book Cryptonomicon.  Yet all these films/stories are commonly touted as Cyberpunk.

It's not always about corporations.  Post apocalypse scenarios like Terminator also seem to be considered Cyberpunk, though one might argue that Skynet had become the ultimate corporation.

Perhaps trying to define Cyberpunk is like trying to define abstract concepts like Justice or Temperance.  Any concise definition fails to measure up to the glorious shape of the idea in our heads.

ROFL

Definitely.  

"I'm such a sensative nice guy, I don't put myself forward, and I'm always ready to listen to girls go on about their problems."

"Yes, and this is why you are 'honourary female' material, rather than 'life partner' or even ''deliverer of hot beef injection' material."

I have noticed that people whom claim to be sensitive tend only to be sensitive to their own needs.  The folks that have impressed me are those whom are instinctively compassionate, whom offer help without thinking but don't consider what they are doing to extraordinary, or even unusual.

The wisdom of ages.

I own very little apart from CP2020, a few equipment books I got on the cheap and a Netrunning book that's good for canniblising ideas from.

I tend to find the greatest wealth of materials reside in the heads of my players.

I am told, to be sure gov'nor.  ::doffs hat::

Hope is precious.  False hope is a source of mirth.

"It's been a long road,

To get from there to here.

It's been a long time,

but my time is finally here."

I am a fan of supernatural and sci-fi series.  Unfortunately this pursuit is severely retarded by the fact I live in the UK and do not have satellite/cable/digital tv.  Channel 4 occasionally gets in some good imports, but typically we are at least 6 months (or an entire season) behind the US, making it very difficult to avoid spoilers sometimes.  As it is I think the only thing I make time to watch on TV is Scrubbs, and that's only in it's second season here.

However for the last 6 months I have experienced a bit of a renaissance in the form of home broadband being made available in my part of the sticks.  Now I am able to download and watch a divx of pretty much whatever series I fancy, a day or two at the most after airing.  Typically I use BitTorrent for new releases, and pick up past series from EDonkey/Overnet.

Current series airing the US I am following include: Alias, Angel, Charmed, Smallville, and stuff of that flavour.  I am also looking forward to the rest of the current season of Stargate: SG-1 when it airs.  The recent MTV Spider-man cartoon (aka Spider-man 2003 or 2k3) was pretty good as well.

However I also have the benefit of being able to download previously aired series.  Currently I am enjoying Babylon 5 in it's entirey for the first time in about 4 or 5 years.  I am just tucking into early season 2, but lookforward to working my way through the lot as and when I download them.  Using EDonkey index sites like ShareReactor.com and therealworld.de I am also picking up Sliders and Quantum Leap.

I say, steady on.  There can't be that many unsecured "grandpaw's armory"s, even in the US.

Hang on.  I think we're all getting a little too clever for our own good.  I know I was making a reference to the tub of lard stereotype, not the (relatively bizarre) nymphomaniac leatherclad submissive RPGerette stereotype that seems to be cropping up in this increasingly outre thread.  Unless you were refering to that.  At which point I think it is time for a cup of tea and some sleight of hand.

Whilst we're at it, are we looking at adding "Boasting about Boning RPGers" as #11 on the list?  Or perhaps even position #0.  And no, the word 'position' is not intended to give folks license to bragg about the positions in which they have delivered or received consignments of hot vienesse sausage to or from fellow RPGers.

Unfortunately I am now compelled to spoil it all by saying that I've noticed RPGers come in all shapes and sizes.

::hangs his head shamefully::

I had a group that could do amazing things with monowire.

I think one of the more psychotic members of the team proposed a plan where we could deal with riots by making a monowire "net" and trawling the streets using a low flying AV.

Fortunately this plan, dubbed "Operation Salsa", was vetoed by the rest of the group.