[Panjandrum]

I'm new here, but not new to SR4, and I'm looking to run a game here, play-by-post. Some caveats:

• You will be members of a team that has worked together for some time. You will be called upon to work together to detail how your characters have interacted with one another in the past. You are more than welcome to have some rivalries, but you will be professionals. No PVP will be allowed or expected.
• You will be based in the Front Range Free Zone - Denver/Boulder area. If you need help with an understanding of how that's laid out, let me know.
• I will be restricting some gear, some spells, and the like, as well as implementing some house rules and common sense interpretations based on my own experience in the game from both sides of the GM's screen.
• I post frequently in my games. I will expect you to, barring unseen circumstances, to be willing to post every day in the IC thread. Even if you're waiting on someone else to react to something you've posted, feel free to post some internal dialogue or the like.

The game will be relatively gritty, and likely be R rated - I intend to pull no punches, and the FRFZ is a place where those that have the money live well, and everyone else is either entirely owned by their corporation, or lives in dangerous and substandard spaces.

Still interested? Send me a PM - do NOT post here - with a few paragraphs about your character. I don't want to see any stats, and I don't want to see "I want to play a technomancer" or something equally brief. Tell me about your character in some depth, or write me a vignette in which they star that really speaks to who they are.

I'll evaluate the PMs that I get as they come in, send follow up questions and the like, and if you've done any PbP here, I'll go looking to see the sort of output you've put into the process in the past. Then I'll put together a list of players whose characters make a compelling team. That might only be three of you, or it might be eight, depending on the quality of the applications.

[Panjandrum]

Some things that will impact your application for the game:

• Only the five base races from SR4A. No SURGE, no Infected, etc.
• Books used: SR4A, most of Street Magic, Most of Arsenal, Augmentation to include Cyber and Bioware, but not Nano or Geneware, Runner's Companion rules on advanced lifestyles, many but not all qualities, and Unwired

[Kontact]

Augmentation to include Cyber and Bioware, but not Nano or Geneware

This?
or...

not Nano or Geneware, Runner's Companion rules on advanced lifestyles, many but not all qualities, and Unwired

This?

Also, if we're to be making real characters, can we use karmagen?  I'm still not ready to forgive the BP system for its role in ruining the gulf coast's ecosystem.

[Sentinemodo]

Augmentation to include Cyber and Bioware, but not Nano or Geneware

This?
or...

not Nano or Geneware, Runner's Companion rules on advanced lifestyles, many but not all qualities, and Unwired

This?

there is no cantradiction here, in both cases he just says no nano and no gene.

still what eveyone have against SURGE? I seem to see this fairly often.

[Kontact]

The first can be interpreted as an isolated aside about what is and isn't allowed from Augmentation (and if it was an aside it should have been in parentheses.)
The second could be interpreted as a list of things not allowed, beginning with genetech and nanoware.

A body could assume he meant
SR4a - all
Street Magic - most (except possession traditions)
Arsenal - most (except chemistry rules)
Augmentation - 2060s tech only, plz
Runners' Companion - Qualities and lifestyles only, thx
Unwired - The Matrix is a mysterious, contradictory and unknowable world, while magic is as regimented as applying for a boat loan.  What's the point...

[Crossbow]

How many ways can I see that I am SO not interested in this little social experiment?


New to play by post, but he wants auditions?

The fact that he wants auditions at all.

The phrase 'house rules', which always sends chills up my spine.

The phrase 'common sense interpretations based on my own experience in the game', which has managed to, with its first usage in this context to me, managed to scare me even more.

That he used the term PVP, which belongs in another type of gaming entirely.

That he seems to fully expect that interparty conflict can be settled by the GM saying "Because I said so!"

Gritty and R rated gameplay,  oooooo!

This should be interesting to watch.

[Sichr]

...

still what eveyone have against SURGE? I seem to see this fairly often.

Well straight hit...
World without Surge and Changelings is no-Shadowrun world

And I think that the fact that I m here on this forums means, that I`m deffinitely not intrested in playing no-Shadowrun...even with some house rules...

I wonder how this GM would handle some Feral city, when he is restrictive even in almost-civilized Denver...

[Sentinemodo]

Well, I wasn't shooting at Panjandrum.

I was just wondering. I've seen recruitment for Kot's game also had no-SURGE sticker.
So I am only wondering what's with them. Are they overpowered or something?

[joe15552]

Welcome to the forum, Panjandrum! I wish I had time to plug a character into your game. I want to explore Denver one of these days.

[Sentinemodo]

Joe, in three weeks, I'll be running another Mission in Denver if you're interested

[Panjandrum]

Sorry, Kontact. Should have used semicolons or some other means of being more precise.

No Nano or Geneware from Augmentation. And then yes to Runner's Companion, in that I'm okay with most of the qualities there, and like the advanced lifestyle rules.

Crossbow, not sure why the hostility (or perhaps just mean-spirited levity) comes from but, to answer your questions:

• Not new to PbP, just new to this forum. Have done PbP at other forums plenty in the past from both sides of the screen with successful results.
• Auditions because I have had bad experiences, most recently as a player, where I come to the table with a character that fits what I think SR is all about, and others come with characters that don't fit what I want in my SR. And I've also found myself playing with people who can't write a simple sentence to save their lives, and who don't know what the little red squiggles in the browser window telling them they've misspelled something are for.
• The House Rules line ought to terrify you, honestly. And I'm sorry I put it in there. I've seen some house rules and interpretations that make me wonder why they're not playing something else entirely. In my case, though I'm obviously biased, I think they're pretty reasonable. I've modified the rules for finding pirated software, for example, so that you can't always find the software you want necessarily - and the "stock" in the data havens you do have contact with changes periodically.
• PvP comes from a type of game that I don't actually play, but whose use is common enough that I thought it would get my point across. Maybe saying that I'm not interested in a game where my PCs are at one another's throats most of the time would have been better? That I wanted players to build PCs who would be appropriate to a team and not have half a dozen little misanthropes who'd just as soon ice one another as get the job done?
• Have you ever had a game go entirely off the rails because part of your world, or a plot element therein, was not to the tastes of one of your players? I have. Thus the rating. I don't want anyone to get into a game where they're unprepared for what they might deal with.

Eh, for me the SURGE thing just took SR in a direction I didn't want to go in. If I wanted a bunch of vampires and furries, I'd be playing different games. Maybe it's because I cut my teeth on SR1, and then didn't play again until SR4A, but for me it an abrupt change that it probably wasn't for many others. Maybe it's because I'm an old man now, and I find myself yelling "You anime kids get off my RPG lawn!" a lot.

[Panjandrum]

Oh, a couple more house rules:

Watcher spirits that can actually watch things (add the summoner's net hits over 1 to the spirit's perception and tracking rolls) and fake credentials that can actually survive casual inspection.

[Sichr]

I`ve reread my previous post and I have to say sorry. Bloody sunday mornings. No offense meant.

What I have to agree with myself is that part about SURGE. Someone sure can see it as some Anime hype in Shadowrun. Dont know. Dont know much anime. But what I remember from Earthdawn, world will change much more than a few chnagelings are created. AIs and infected are the facts, and in my game plots Im working a lot with Feral Cities, so I see this racial mishmash as a firm part of the SR universe...a team from Assamondo would be for sure team of infected runners...with everything included..much more difficult for a good roleplay... But. As always, it is a question of personal taste. One man`s medicine should be another one`s poison.

Enought of this OT.

Good luck

[Panjandrum]

Accepted, Sichr. No harm, no foul.

Let me also say, however, that I'm restricting the PCs to not being Infected, or AIs or Changelings. Not that there won't be any whatsoever in the game.

[Crossbow]

 

Crossbow, not sure why the hostility (or perhaps just mean-spirited levity) comes from but, to answer your questions:

It was more of the second, but probably a little too much of former misdirected your way.  For that I apologize.  I have known way too many GMs that it is amazing that they can play at all because they are so exclusive as to what they will tolerate in their game.  But they have a core group of old friends that understands them and plays with them in spite or because of those attributes.
I am all about the social aspect of role-playing games, I prefer to be inclusive and I love to teach the games to people, and help them overcome negative aspects to their style.

Rules wise I am a purist, I have had problems with specific rules but I am willing accept them because I have seen enough times where a rule I dislike is either a misread on someone’s part, mine or a player, or there is another aspect of the rules that is check and balance and the system as a whole works or doesn’t.

All of this is not to excuse what I said before, and I appreciate that you didn’t blow me off as a flame but addressed the concerns.  You even did so a lot more respectfully than I deserved, so kudos for that.

 

Have you ever had a game go entirely off the rails because part of your world, or a plot element therein, was not to the tastes of one of your players? I have. Thus the rating. I don't want anyone to get into a game where they're unprepared for what they might deal with.

Actually I have, most often with this system.  It has helped me to talk it out with players and curb those aspects to my players’ sensibilities, that inclusive rather than exclusive thing again.

Anyway, I think I am going submit something for your game, just to show no hard feelings.  Feel free to reject me with or without prejudice, but after your explanation and you backing off the soapbox I realize it might fun to try.