hmm, surge. was there not something in the talk about surge being part of RC?

if so, could the obsidiman be something attached to the surge rules?

Well at least we got something cool instead. Oh wait, no we didn't. We got thread after thread about who can make an anthropomorphic cat do the strangest things with adept powers.

that and what use runners could make of a marsupial pouch.

Eh. I still think Year of the Comet was cool, SURGE included.

I realize that I'm in the minority with that thought though.

(Seriously! SURGE, orichalcum, Ghostwalker, and Shedim? Holy plot points Batman!)

So can anyone tell me what's not cool about that?

Because while dealing with dragons can get you some notoriety. Dealing in dragons makes you the prey of Sirrurg


Now how would you stat those... i want one
Synner, get on this right away... pretty please?

dont get me wrong, i never understood the burning hatered that some here on dumpshock have for that books (but then i cant understand much of the burning hatered people have for most stuff posted on a web forum these days. it seems the word hate and statements on the same level is being overused). but i must confess that i never got hold of the book proper, so i may be biased or uninformed.

I dunno. Most SURGE effects, I would have genetherapied away, negative as well as 'positive' ones. I never thought SURGE was good for more than creating annoying Mary Sues, for the most part and from my experience with sURGEd characters. It's good for some nice NPCs though, like that woman in On The Run ... so it has it's uses.

Now, I'm no fan of SURGE. But hate the whole book? YotC overall was a nice book. WotC was disappointing, but meh, it was readable and even playable with some tweaking. I'd never use SURGE on my characters, but if it floats someone's boat? More power to them, I say.

Dragons and Obsidian Men what about windlings and T'skrang as playable?

I think it's just a matter of people's perceptions of the Sixth World being different. For some people it's still very cyberpunk; fighting the man, scraping together the money for your next piece of 'ware, trying not to get screwed by your Johnson (there's a double entendre if I ever heard one). For others its a John Woo action movie with lots of guns, beautiful women, and dangerous locations. For still others, it's X.

SURGE on its own is pretty benign. From what I remember (books are at home, I'm at work) you get a chance tweak to your character some. You could have a cyclops eye or become a little extra resistant to fire...or you could grow gills and have to spend the rest of your life living in sea water (or else you die). It was kind of a bitch that way. The problem is that these tweaks can be taken to an extreme, an extreme that can land you, the GM, with an anthropomorphic or anime-esque concept landing in front of you.

For some groups, that's perfectly fine. They want to run something out of Dominion Tank Police, and they've got the option for it. But to others that's just lemon juice to the eye: "Not in my Sixth World!"

I'm a fan of SURGE because it opened the Sixth World up for further diversification. Thanks to it, we're not as stuck in the Tolkein-pastiche as we might still be. Hell, with SURGE in canon, we've got all sorts of new background excuses for runners - take Zumi in the opening fiction of the BBB, for instance.

Like any metaplot shift in SR canon, it's going to irk some people. Adding cat / bunny / dog or Biggun Da Cyclops options to the game will only infuriate them further. And unfortunately, the Internet acts like a megaphone and gives them more presence than they may even have.

+1

Well, Windlings have been around since PAoE...i wonder wether they'll make it to PC status in this Ed.

Windlings would work under playable free spirit rules. T'skrang have apparently died out.

I want Klobb and Greenlings, though. And those furries. SR4 definitly is manga enough for furry runners.


Uhm ... I think you mix something up here ... Shirow has a lot of wild stuff going, but no furries. catgirls at most, and those always are gengineered (which was a staple of CP since Chromebook 1).


I guess you aren't aware that cyclopses (and Giants, Ogres, Oni, Dryads and Night Elves, among other things) were added before YotC with the Edition Runners' Companion?

Yeah. If you look, I edited Shirow out and put in Tank Police. I was trying to remember which of his cyberpunk work had "furries" in it, but was coming up blank with a name at the moment I was writing that post. I mean, there's the other stuff he's done, but I think it's probably against forum rules to discuss those.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)


Oh, I know about the meta-variants. I was just running with my previous example of a normal metahuman with one eye. That's all (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

1) Don't go too much into details and keep it vaguely SR-related and you're fine.
b) Catgirls are girls with cat ears. Furries are anthropomorphic animals. Big difference. And those two were definitly catgirls. I actually was thinking of them (and that gengineered feral cargirl from Appleseed) when I wrote this.


Ah, right, that effect ... nothing imbalancing there, if you ask me. Icky, and nothing I would have happen to my characters. But there's far worse around than SURGE. Especially in SR4 (vampires come to mind).

1. Well I mean, if you want me to start going into like, say, the horsemen and the cowgirl stuff (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
2. I'd say semantics, but I'll give it to you, though the girls from Tank Police were a little more than just girls with cat ears (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I've never seen Appleseed - I kind of fell out of love with Shirow for some reason.


I'm not saying that there is anything unbalancing, but to some groups that may be more than what they want, y'know?

There's lots of "Man, I'm glad that's not me" moments in SR (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Refering to the Manga, neither of the movies.

I kinda understand you, though I do still love his technical and architectural design. And GitS SAC, which at least partly is Shirow's direct work, too. I guess it's all that random fanservice-y sex in his Manga and his newly discovered love for crappy rendered backgrounds that drove me off GitS 2 (that and Technomancers).


Oh, it would be to me, too. that's where gene therapy omes in, and that's why I'd propably get a little fit if a GM forced me to roll on SURGE.

I am a supporter of SURGE, but that probably involves never having seen it forced on players. Forced on animal sidekicks with the approval of the player whose sidekick it is, yes. (no, the snake and horse didn't get to vote, but they did seem to enjoy their new lives)

I have chosen to have my characters roll for SURGE, and have always made sure I was willing to accept if I ended up with a .02 essense dual natured thorned dwarf as a result, but I do disagree with forcing optional character rules on people.

Just curious why you would put windlings as free spirits? They aren't spirits anymore than elves and dwarves are.

In SR, they are Fae, and Fae arguably are spirit-ish creatures (like Horrors are). Though PAoE isn't really clear as to what the sprite actually is,s o propably it COULd work as an ordinary creature too.

...I had to with Leela. All I can say is thank the goddess she had a lot of implants. The Troll Adept in our group wasn't so fortunate.

... and THIS is where I'd have a little fit.

My players do not get to roll for SURGE, they take it at creation as a series of positive or negative qualities. But if they do their character's history has to have some notes of when and how it occurred. Once created SURGEing does not occur.

Earth Dawn is a deceased game system, trying to implant things from it wildlings etc, is a bad move IMHO.

WMS

If by deceased you mean alive and kicking, then you might still be wrong. It is partially the same setting, so a hint from time to time is not bad per se.

*points to this link*