malek77

LoL...

...That all sounds like so much fun!

Just how hard is a halberd to swing around? I have these mental images of a 9ft long stick with a pointy axe on the end, and it being devastating if you're in a phalanx of them...

Kids get loud, insistent and annoying when their parents don't take notice of them...which is probably why its becoming more common with todays 'interesting' views on parenting...(ie: the kids kinda happen, and then the sole parent has to deal with it somehow. Which means making the child silent in fear for as long and often as possible.)

If I ever do end up a father (which I'd lay good odds against), I'd probably end up training my children to be dangerous little classroom warrior-philosophers, deconstructing the teachers every statment and wrapping the other kids around their intellectual fingers.

They'd probably be more familiar with computers and the internet than RL socialisation, would say 'Lol' when something funny happened (like, one of the 'untermensch' kids tried vainly to compete with them) and would be the first in their year to sport I/F jacks.

And if Gattaca style tweaks or accelerated learning software was available, they'd be on it.

They'll be young when the Singularity hits. I'd want them to be ready for it...

(Har Har! This is my 1984th post. How appropriate...)

I'd be SO tempted to make bucky balls with them, paint numbers on and push them around...

...Living in a giant D10. How appropriate...

I like it, and it'd certainly make UN run Refugee camps so much more stylish, rather than those hideous gauche colour schemes they seem to use today...

WooHarr!

That looks great...

I was wondering the other day if its the same with number plates in other countries - buying personalised ones with funny colours and all.

(It'd be a decent money spinner for the RTA... )

The instinctual aspect of behaviour is the flaw...that makes you react out of context, not the conscious reason part.

Reason is your only defence against 'reacting', your only weapon against being another one of societies human 'Pavlov's Dog'.

No, I'd stick with Him/His.

Being intellectually genderless is for my benefit, not to cause public confusion.

Earthling is a great album...can't say I like any of his other stuff...too ballady. I think. I just accuse any guitar music I don't like of being a ballad.

Thanks to Hanns - already have...but they're still flesh coloured. And some are hairy. Ech.

It all boils down to not wanting thought to be interfered with by hormones...having an absolute focus of mind and purity of reason.

Gender interferes with that. As does hunger and fear and everything else that makes us human. Just lopping off gonads won't change that...the ideal change is to remove the processes that influence otherwise reasonable thinking with reproductive urges, fear or desire.

I know when I go off like this I sound whacked, and I am; its just the idea of being a cold, direct and incorruptible cyborg is really attractive...and being human is so disgusting and horrible. *shrugs*

MUAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-ROFL....

...that's classic...see, that, peoples, is how humans justify themselves. For boys, sex is a self defining goal; for girls it is the ultimate in responsibility and a purpose for which they must feel adequately prepared.

I keep wishing there was something else, but it all comes back to it somehow. Which is annoying.

And there's my contribution : trying to cook up an alternate reason for bothering to be, other than just being a recursive function.

...my current meaning in life is computer games, thus promoting economic stability which will inevitably lead to the Singularity. Get your Meaning of Life here.

(and for the wimps and sentimentalists with their eyes bugging out, I'm serious. I've been seeking gender neutrality since I was 10, and can think of nothing greater than being a genderless, meatless cyborg monstrosity with nothing but an AI's orders in my mind. So sue me, its why I'm here...)

Um, you don't think this might be a way to make them responsible members of society again?

Like an Outward Bound trip - you know, bunch of losers/worriers/nutcases and one lunatic leader. They either grow up or (in this case) die...

The intention being to give them confidence that they can return to society and make a go of it, rather than continuing the cycle toward suicide or death...

Here I wouldn't be throwing them suicide missions, but humanitarian ones. Most criminals are not total psychos...in the case of a CP world you'd certainly have lots of noble minded sorts caught in a pinch and trapped in gaol.

Pack them off to repair a destroyed hydroponic farm in the middle of a desert, or protecting and supporting US occupied territories in SouthAm, or cleaning up the toxic spill they caused when they bombed a Biotechnica facility.

Do you use Non-Lethals often in games?

I have this feeling that with Corporate Internecine warfare it would make more sense to capture and interrogate attackers than blow them away. It also opens up interesting legal avenues - you aren't designing your Security around a body count but the rather more family-oriented 'arrest and interrogate' option...it would be an effective way of giving your company a friendlier face in an age of extreme violence.

For the attacker - if you used non-lethals on guards to complete your mission, you're showing them a deal of respect that might weaken resentment and hostility. Should they capture you in turn, they could well be less aggressive...

It might also please your sponsor that if the mission were to go awry, there isn't a pile of murder charges to be laid at their door...

Anyone here put much thought into non-lethal tactical philosophy?

We know about tasers and voltguns - anything else you might have used effectively? Sticky foams? Laughing gas? Quick ways to debilitate large defensive forces without getting indicted for war crimes?

Whee! I only found all this after I spotted Verdigris.

I'm in. And if you become desperate or overworked and need a gm to takeover, I'll havea go... :S

I'm just wondering what kinda plot you wanna play tho...if ur stuck for ideas, pm me and I'm sure we can work something up.

(Notes unusual amount of enthusiasm in self. Hm... )

(NB - Harry & I were discussing this the other night, so some of the points here may be a bit 'non-sequitur')

THE FIRST RULE OF GMing!!

Players NEVER do what you expect them to.

If you have a netrunner and a gun bunny trapped in a room with a computer, and you think the netrunner will hack the computer and unlock the computer controlled door - think again! The gun bunny will shoot the computer in case it has a security camera in it while the netrunner will get stuck searching for a button to open the door.

And suddenly, you'll have to concoct a sane sounding way for them to get out...or just kill them both and end the story.

Don't let the players give NPC's any lip...

PC's are generally fierce, indepandant, and versatile individuals with frightening histories of violence and intrigue.()

This means that they like 'pushing' your NPC's into giving them what they want and telling them everything they want to know.

Option 1 : the NPC being leaned on doesn't know anything.

Option 2 : bluff with a loaded gun and if they keep pushing, blow something off them. (This makes the game more tense too. Everyone starts hating everyone else...)

Preparation

Understand the Opponent's plot.

Whoever it is the PC's have been hired to go up against are probably meant to be dangerous and clever.

If that's so, they'd better act that way. Go through the 'baddies' side of the story. Their plan should have a good chance of success, and no major holes.

Know the map

Have a mental idea of the map your players are on - this lets you set the scene quickly. Why's this important? Re-read the 'First Rule'.

Scenes

I work in 'Scenes' - this is a 'unit' of game. A scene does something - Mr.Shadow explains something, the players have to find someone's body entangled in their apartment air conditioner, or the players must, by the end of the scene comprehend something.

Normally I'll have thought of a little movie version of the event - but the exact location and people involved might change dramatically. Just focus on what the Scene must do.

A game should be composed of a string of such scenes - initial meeting, learn clue 1, learn clue 2, scene where they realise a connection, le grand finale gun battle.

How to tell when you've done enough planning? When someone can ask 'where can I buy a pistol?' and you can end up ranting about the political relationship between the democratic party and the dockyard corporation.

This means you know enough to ad-lib your way through anything...

Saw it the other morning...

Hmm. Odd - it was such a change of 'pace' from both the first and second - the first was discovery, the second was about gaining understanding, and then the conclusion...and did it ever conclude well!

I didn't find it overweeniningly emotional, in fact, the 'reason' Neo gives at the 'end' is beautifully different...

Something I found particularly gratifying was the subtle use of bullet-time...they didn't drown the wiewer in it, they used it for emphasis. Congrats, Wachowski bro's!

...and the Mech's fighting the Squiddies...

YeeHARR!

That was wild...do it again! Proof that live action mech movies are possible and would look heaps cool!

(Also - it was interesting to see the goodies holding a beach-head for once...and that the baddies weren't incredibly dumb, by jumpstarting the digger and keeping going, for instance...)

Its different, but good. Me happy.

Ah! Well - welcome brother to the Interlock system, as used by Cyberpunk 2020 (our preferred gaming rules).

Having had to drive the Inquisitor rules, I have found them to be about as wieldy as a farm tractor on a race circuit. Interlock is ever so much simpler and deeper. That and our weapons actually have decent rates of fire...

(yes, CP2020 is a gun game, swords do work, but not as well as in Inquisitor!)

Played ShadowRun by emulation? No...Shadowrun kinda gets lambasted around here...

Its the Fairies, you see...

Something I've always wondered, and this thing highlights it :

Imagine I've gone insane and decided to try an edgerun in RL.

I've got something like a carbine.

I know there's some guys around a right turn and I have to clean them out.

The question is - how does a right hander get a shot around a right corner? A left hand turn is fine - you put your gun around and all that's exposed is a bit of shoulder and helmetted head.

But on a right hand turn, what do you do? Butt the gun up against your left shoulder and hope you still shoot straight? Move right out in the open? Hold it sideways?

Or am I sticking to the safety of dubious cover when just getting out there for a clean shot is smarter and faster?

It looks to me like its a rig for holding a pistol in it - not a solid, single standalone gun...maybe you could pull the pistol out and use it normally...

Heh - as an idea though - what if the hinge were motorised and the targetting automated? Barrel traverses and fires while you just hang onto it...

...ok, so its stupid. But it looks interesting...

Send MPRI in to build the army and police. (worked for ex-Yugoslavian states!)

Send Executive Outcomes in to oversee the Oil production. (While XO was in Sierra Leone, it had a democratic gov't, they were kicked out by a whinging UN, and Sierra Leone promptly returned to Hell)

Control it all with Dynacorp.(Quote "You want the 101st killing people and blowing stuff up, not maintaining webpages. It makes sense to outsource.")

Well. It'd work...

{Shock! On researching for this post...it seems I'm not far off the mark - Dynacorp Paranoia...}

Seriously now...

Pull out? No.

Fill the power vacuum? Yes. Make Iraq the 51st state of the US if you have to - just because the word 'Colonialism' causes the UN to squit itself and WTO protestors to cry on their tie died shirts doesn't mean its a bad thing! It's a bad thing if you're taking advantage of the population. If you're really, actually trying to help them...then no amount of whinging will conceal the fact you are doing good.

Start with the basics...water, food, power.

Get the economy to depend on itself - create internal 'demand'. When commercial problems arise - found local regulatory bodies. When a Ghandi figure pops up, hand over power. Use lots of locals in your organisational structures. This will confuse or isolate the terrorists - because they'll either be killing the wrong people and pi$$ing their friends off, or unable to attack because the real targets are too distant (and thus easier to defend.)

All in all, ignore the soft options. The NGO's are alienated anyway, who cares...

You could think of the idea as removing the HDD aspect - the programs just don't die in RAM when its turned off. Or as removing the intermediate step of RAM...besides - isn't the sorting and processing done by Registries?

Yes! That's it...I just couldn't think of the 'H' word...

While you could do the pretty sci-fi thing and have transparent data cubes - I assume the 'crystal block' would be encased in a device with the laser read heads, further encased in a plastic shell, with a socket on one end for a processor or motherboard to mate to.

EMPing might cause the read heads to have a seizure and corrupt some data, and it will certainly still screw with any processor attached - but otherwise, the memory should be fine. Assuming the laser effect is to do with polarized light, and the crystal is non-conductive.

Yes! Finish Fragments of Avalon. You write quite well, I'd like to see a finished tract...

Not sure if I've mentioned this idea before. Anyway - here it is - it may be crap, it may be cool...but ultimately its an excuse for making CyberSpace 3D.

Convergent Memory

You've all seen memory sticks, you all know about RAM.

You know that HDD access times are limited because they're mechanical, you know RAM gets wiped when the system is turned off.

Imagine Memory stick storage technology with RAM equivalent access times. (requires no great stretch of the imagination with CP tech levels!)

It begs the question - why make distinction between HDD and RAM then? Why not do it all in one? As soon as the power or process is taken off, all the bits stay in position, when you connect it again, its a 'flash-start' - no load times, starts running again right from where it was left.

Now for a little bit of artistic license - imagine the memory was stored as a 3D space. Perhaps using that crystal memory concept - regardless, the Drive access' memory as a 3D object, rather than a continuous line.

Imagine, to view the memory as a subject in itself, and not open the file, you sample, say, 1 in every hundred bytes.

With this, you create an image...the denser the bits in an area, the more solid the image.

A file, with its bits stored in standard consecutive order, would look like a frosted glass sheet with sharp, layered edges.

Software could look the same, or it could have a defined 3D shape - an area in which it moved its bits about and manipulated information.

If your deck/browser could communicate with or recognise file types and software, it could overly appropriate icons as well.

If you've ever played with that game Life you may get a better idea of what I'm thinking of - in particular, think of things like Gliders, Steamships and Puffer Trains as attack or exploratory software...

Also - I'm again on my 'Agent Orientation' horse, so a Netrunner going into a system would actually be sending a remote controlled 'Agent' in there - a fuzzy blob of code that would basically allow connections and opening/running of other software. Kinda like a Daemon.

Thoughts? Clarifications?

Cool - the Aussie contingent is catching up!

Welcome aboard! & what part of Oz do you hail from?

I'm a New South Welshman...

Yes! That's exactly the model...

Fortune telling...hmm...I wonder what '00' stood for then? Because it rolls it an unreasonable number of times...

I have recently acquired a 31 sided dice, whilst cleaning up my demented grandfathers house.

Its glass, its Czechoslovakian, is (probably) over 50 years old and has 2 sides with zero. Well - on top you have '0', and on the bottom you have '00'.

Do you have any idea what it might be for, or from?

I didn't think D&D was that old, if indeed, it uses such a dice...

(curiously, the only mildly interesting reference Google seemed to have to the 31 sided dice question was Squeek! here...hmm)

Hmm - 'Street Samurai.' They sound a rather serious lot to me - I imagine a gaijin guy who knows more about Japan than the Yak' gangsters down the street.

I imagine strict - possibly even literal Bushido - codes of honour, possibly even as far as suicide pacts with their employer (ie: promising to die fighting for them).

iirc - Samurai are more soldier, where Ninja are more mercenery. Thus (unless street samurai is a derogatory term for some nut who thinks he's real good but isn't) I would think its an ultra-loyal henchman of some organisation.

To make this loyalty 'Tick' you need a strong tie between our Samurai and his master - rogues just being hired isn't the go here. Perhaps blood, ancient life debts, saved from death/trained from birth kind of things. And there'd better be a damn good fringe benefits package - you won't get a Samurai for a 2 block dope dealer...maybe some kinda kingpin or drug-lord, or Corporate XO.

Something big.

In the extreme, this is a rather grand and classical kind of character...