LordDemon

Richard suddenly notices that the hangar doors are locking.

"What the..."

He checks for the consol to see if he accidently closed them himself, before grapping the intercom.

"Richard here. Did someone close and lock hangar doors? If so, could you inform me next time, just incase I´m between the doors so I won´t get cut to half..."

I guess everyone, or atleast everyone who likes to tweak the rules, has their own rules and settings for creating characters. I was wondering, if you would wish to share yours.

I can start, and also show what I meant.

(Here "We" refers to me and my friend, who both like to tweak the rules. I´m not royal you know )

Character Attributes: We usually give a prefix set of points(70/75/80) depending a bit on the game powerlevel. These can be distriputed to 10 attributes (we divided BODY to BODY and STRENGHT). Attributes must be between 2 and 10. As a gentleman treaty, we usually set our luck scores to 5 (and to help with history, more of this later)

Skills: Our characters have pretty much skills. For starters, we have the 40 point career skills. In addition, we usually have another 40 points of pickup skills, and [iNT+education/general knowledge] points of language skills +native language (8 points). This will obviously need some explaining.

We enforce a 4 point max. difference in skills. What this means is that your highest, and your lowest skill can only be 4 points apart. So, for your 10 career skills, you can have them between 7 to 3, 6 to 2 , 5 to 1 or have all 4. This will reduce the rifle 10, awareness 0 solos effectively. Same applies to pickup skills, and we usually have min of 10 pickup skills. This will create characters with a lot of skills, but not at high levels. Note that career skills affect to pick up skills in the 4 point maximum.

Language skills show how well your character will understand and learn languages in multicultural/lingual enviroment. High intelligence helps to learn languages in day to day life, as does formal education(languages propably are mandatory even in elementary school at 2020). I was thinking about adding streetdeal/wise here, but that´s still open for debate. Language skills don´t have to obey the 4 point difference, they can be divided as liked.

Gear and Cyber:

Usually we have 5000 eb worth of cyber/gear/cash. When creating the character, we don´t pay for the cyber hospital costs (surgery or recovery time) because it would slow down character creation too much. Other then that, it´s standard rules.

History:

Pretty much the usual, we roll history using some improved history chart (I think credit is due to Blackhammer project, we got it there. I think.) Main differences are that stats, like INT and EMP (and LUCK) affect your history. Our characters are generally in little use (random gaming) so we don´t bother writing a deep history that often.

Other things worth mentioning are that we use the Merits and Flaws system someone cooked up. The points are taken and put to pickup skills. (I suggest this to everyone, go check this, from Blackhammer)

That´s about it. Our recipe for monsters. So how do you cook yours?

Actually, the ones I´m more concerned about now are the ones in power at the moment.

As the focus has concentrated to foreigners, and muslims, the average right-wing/left-wing domestic nutcases have it easier to do what they want. They may even get the public´s approval. Imagine witnessing brawl between 5 arabs, and 5 locals (unless you live in arabia of course). Who do you think is the bad guys?

Anyway, I haven´t had much problem with that sort of thing here. Just thought I´d give you some comments...

Actually, the ones I´m more concerned about now are the ones in power at the moment.

As the focus has concentrated to foreigners, and muslims, the average right-wing/left-wing domestic nutcases have it easier to do what they want. They may even get the public´s approval. Imagine witnessing brawl between 5 arabs, and 5 locals (unless you live in arabia of course). Who do you think is the bad guys?

Anyway, I haven´t had much problem with that sort of thing here. Just thought I´d give you some comments...

"The course is looking good, we better check it again later to see if it still hoilds."

Meanwhile, unless you have any jobs for me, I think it might be smart to try to save some oxygen."

ooc: how long does the freezing process take, and how soon should the course be revaluated. Also, do I have the "fake death chip? Wouldn´t that reduce oxygen usage? Or simply sleeping?

"...4...3...2...1...0!"

"I´ll check that we are on course, that will take just a moment."

Richard starts the calculations again.

ooc: My bad. I was thinking them on two vectors, first on 360 degree circle, with 0 being infront of the ship, 180 behind and 90 and 270 on sides. Second vector was from 0 (straight below the ship) to 180 (straight above the ship),

giving the vectors at 0.1 degree accuracy (4 numbers)

Oh my god, I´m famous!

Or atleast someone put my story in the net...  And considering what else is in the web, I´m not sure if that´s so flattering.  

Anyway, thanks for putting it up Aga, now I just sit back and wait for the royalties to roll in...

What do you mean "NO"?!?!

Ummm.

Did you design the FBC:s yourself?

I already got that, and it´s a really useful pdf file (mainly for "find" option)

But it´doesn´t have:

-The SDP/space/prise table <--- I got this one already. Thanks Thumper.

-sizes (space wise) of weapons

-Armor/fuel cost/space/effects

-Acc/Dec

Well, my combat experience comes from First Person Shooters, so I doubt they are TOO good, but one thing I think will help is high manouverability. You can´t just hole up somewhere, and wait till the targets come up. The more you move, the better for your survival, as long as you take an occational look behind you too.

The overwatch movement is good too. If I understood correctly, it´s dividing the squad/team into two, of witch one is moving, while another one provides cover fire. Then the second one starts to meve, while the first provides cover, and so on.

Hope that helps.

Richard checks that the course changes seem regular.

He takes the intercom.

"I confirm, course and power as requested. Counter thrusters at direction 1798-0888. Powerlevel 55%. Ignition on 0, counting down. 10...9...8...7...6...5..."

I always found it stupid, that the changes of getting hit on suppressive fire are always the same.

Say you are in a 1 meter hallway, when someone shoots suppressive there.

If they shoot 30 rounds to the hall, or 120 rounds, you fails the athletics roll in either case. Still, you only get D6 hits in both, even though the second is a lot deadlier.

Something along the lines "D6 x ROF/20 hits , Round fractions normally" might make it functional.

Also, in autofire, we use 5% ROF / point over required.

Makes high ROF weapons interesting.

Not bad, not bad at all.

Might be reality in CP2020. Also, The "lower class" could swear more then "upper class". (upper class need to give an intelligent/sophisticated picture, while factory workers have more to complain)

Imagine a factory manager and assembly line worker bumbing into each others.

"Hey, F*** off! You are stepping on my toes!"

"I say, that is bloody rude, you...you...NEANDERTHAL!!"

Witch brings us to the question, is Arasaka (or Ara) a swearword in Militech-etiquette?

Slightly of subject, my thought of cursing:

I agree with both views. Cursing, in CP2020 will be vievew as against etiquette, and as a bad habit that can get you into BIG trouble.

On the other hand, the cursing will happen. And my guess is, it will even happen more.

For young peopple, and teenagers, it allows a mild way to oppose authority, and rebel. It´s not illegal, just viewed as bad manor, and that is just what teenagers want, when they wish to upset their parents. Imagine a guy with a leatherjacket, and a bike. Not illegal, but you have your thoughts about him. Or someone with green hair, or facial piercings and metal in their face so that they could be lifted with a magnet. It´s all done to get attention, and to oppose authority(well, that´s my opinion). In this scene, cursing will remain to be "fashionable", and moves to younger and younger kids(a trend visible even today, I´m afraid).

But this doesn´t mean that adults don´t swear. Even though they swear less, and it´s not as casual as for teens, they do it. When you live in a modern(futuric) society, especially as a salaryslave, you will get thustrated. The train is late, and you won´t get to office before noon. You know your boss will not like it. I doubt "Oh well, life goes on." is the first thought in your mind. Instead, what I see is cursing changing slightly, towards lifeless automated systems, instead of people. Things like "The F***ing train was late.", "F***ing highway rushhour", or "S***, the ATM machine ate my card." are frequent.

Also, generalization is one thing. "F***ing cops, don´t they have anything better to do then prey on innocent drivers.", "The goverments are worth S*** today." and "F*** the megacorps." These will propably be used when not around subject, like when out with friends (of whom no-one is a cop, a politic or a CEO of a major corporation).

The cursing, even though not suitable behaviour, will actually let person blow off some steam then and there. Imagine being in work, where you have to talk face to face to people, asking same stupid questions, complaining to you about their own stupid errors, and still having to be polite. No wonder US postal workers go Berserk. No-one appreciates you, everyone complains about you, you have to be nice to people who you would want to shout back at...

Sociologically, I can imagine some corporations allowing swearing, except when in the company of superiors, or visitors (or in "higher circles, where etiquette comes in.") just to prevent workers from starting to shoot each others at the end of the day.

Hmm. This didn´t come out as neatly as I had planned. I hope you get something out of this. My two cents, anyone got a change?

Richard takes the intercom.

"Ok, we´ll start the manouvering now. Unless you have something really important, please keep the intercom free for a while, so that the orders won´t mix up. Andrew, set the course to 3598-0912. Manouvering thrusters 55% power. Counter thrusters on my mark."

Richard relays the thruster information to Andrew, and checks the course changes to see if the thrusters affect the plan.

Once Danielle starts to head back, he takes the intercom, and informs everyone.

"This is Richard. We are going to do a manouver once Danielle gets inside, just so you know."

I never considered combat zones as full scale war, more like ghettos, and really lousy slums.

Filth, crime, and despair are the main parts. The areas are so vast, and so widespread, that police are all the time overworked. This leads to minor crimes going unpunished, as the police simply can´t deal with the amount of brawls, theft and speeding going on. If they see it, they might stop it, and maybe write a ticket, but that´s it. The bit more dangerous crimes, drugs, armed confrontations, small riots, looting and similar crimes take the cops time, as they work these things out. They still won´t do extensive research, as they don´t have the resources.

Real dangerous crimes, such as angry postal officers with autoweapons, large riots, explosions, arson, gang war final confrontations, etc. also happen. They are not as common as minor crimes, but they happen. Police have hard time getting there in time, unless the situation lasts long (sniper on some roof, shooting randomly to the crowd.). If they get there in time, they deal with it properly(if they have resources). If they arrive late, they interview the witnesses, write a report, and ignore rest of the case, unless public, corps or goverment push them to solve it. In general, if you are there, doing things wrong, when cops arrive, you are in trouble. If you get out of site, you are pretty much free, unless someone tells you did it. (even then, you might be free, depending on the crime. Speeding tickets aren´t written on eyewitness stories in this scenario.) As eyewitnesses have wrown in danger, most muggings/rapes/assaults end to murder/manslaughter, as leaving eyewitnesses that can recognise you is stupid. Killing them is actually a lot safer (from police view, who knows what friends thaey have).

Given that, if crimes are left unpunished, more crimes happen ("he got away with it, why wouldn´t I try it too?") . And since the situation has been down for decades, the CZ is pretty hopeless.

My two cents, anyone got a change?

Ummm. I have a computer program to roll the dices...

It even tells me the final sum. (although the way it´s coded, about 100 rolls is maximum, you can´t see the final result otherwise...

Hmmm. I got to change it now that I noticed that.

I vote for:

Wildside (good book in my opinion, now if I could only remember where I put mine)

LUYPS (good for beginning GM:s. A bit heavy to read, but still good. Not much solid rules/stuff though, more along the lines "dealing with 'Dr. munchkin, or how I learned to stop worrying about balance, and love my gun.' " Not too useful, if you listen and communicate with people on these boards though.

Max Metal, well, mainly because I don´t have it, and I want it.  Ask if he has a spare. Good, if you intend to have heavier stuff around.

I don´t know if Shockwave or WGF will be too good, I didn´t like them too much (Stormfront was better)

And I haven´t had anything to do with the others, so I have no idea about them (though P&S sounds interesting)

Hope this helps

I was just wondering if you could comment on gun regulations, lisences, etc.

All the things concerning free/limited/restricted weapon carrying.

Also, would you like to change the system, and how?

Feel free to share your opinions.

I was just wondering, does anyone on these boards (US citizens mainly) belong to the stated association?

"Ok, I stay here, and inform you on the readings. I was thinking the course corrections could be something like this, so we would also get back to our original course."

*Richard shows the navigation data on screen to Andrew.*

"I think it will be enough to evade the comet. We better wait untill Danielle is clear before we start. You can go to bridge, and set everything ready there. I´ll query her status."

*Richard takes the intercom*

"Danielle? Can you guess how long it takes untill you are back inside? Take your time, but let us know when you are heading back."

"Yes, I´m Richard. Richard Epsilon. Pleased to meet you. We need to change the course of the ship, to avoid colliding with a comet. The bridge computers are dead, so we need two people, one in cockpit to change the course, and another in OTV to check the readings. Would you prefer to fly, or read the instruments?"

*Richard listens Danielle explaining the situation.*

"Ok, we´ll make the course change when you are back inside. It shouldn´t bother people inside the ship too much, but I better inform them."

From the matter to a flowerpot, does anyone know about english(or finnish) <-> latin dictionary online?

Or is latin, like finnish, a language difficult to translate with computers?