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[Fortune]

[Xenith]

I'm referencing every book and movie that have a "similar" plot line because of genre, ever (Johnny Mnemonic anyone?). Its an evolution of ideas. SR has tech, ideas, and plot lines Gibson never had and never will. (Assuming he isn't a hypocrite of course. Meh. it happens. )

And something will come along and rip off SR. Wah. If its good, its good and theres no use crying about it.

[mfb]

well, yes, obviously there are no new stories. but with SR and Neuromancer, the borrowing is much more extreme and much less disguised. street samurai and hand razors, for instance, are lifted directly from the book. the Matrix is obviously taken directly from the book. the domination of Japanese megacorps, the gangs--they didn't just take the general ideas, they took the details. if SR had been written today, FASA would be sued for copyright infringement.

i'm not crying about it, or anything. just saying Gibson does have a fairly defensible reason for being miffed.

[Xenith]

Which he expressed with an asinine post that basically said; "MY cyberpunk is better and more pure than yours. And you stole from me to feel better about your lack of cyberpunk-ness... "

Pft. Sorry. Not feeling the piety there.

He would have have an argument once. He has almost none now, especially after that.

Personally, I'd be flattered if my fiction set a standard for a genre. I'd care less who borrowed off of my writing after that. He could have similarly acknowledged those references gracefully as the acknowledgment of his fiction and its place in the roots of the genre. But no. He made a very different decision, and I think all the lesser of him for it.

[Konsaki]

This is drifting off topic here, keep it on the FAQ...

[ThreeGee]

[IvanTank]

[Konsaki]

For continued discussion on William Gibson and the effects he may or may not have had on Shadowrun, click here.
This way, this thread doesnt get locked due to derailment. Thank you.

[Fortune]

Yeah! Stop messin' up my purty FAQ thread! :P

[Serbitar]

[ElFenrir]

Hmm, about that reaction thing im disliking...

I guess its for a few reasons...one, i do sorta have a soft spot for the sammies and their big chrome slowdown in gameplay. Karma goes to boosting stats and skills, good, but their chrome gets an upgrade once in a blue moon. (To be noted, many sammies i know end up putting their Karma to Edge for necessity, their other skills and attributes kind of hanging in limbo. With the cost of Attributes 3x new rating, those tend not to be nailed as much in my experience...)

Im actually not bashing magic characters here, btw. I enjoy spell-slingers, too. But to see the amounts of power they can achieve for a 15 BP start-game investment makes me sorta want to stick up for the cyber-freaks out there. 15 BP and a few handfuls of BP for magical skills and spells. With enough BP left to take a couple of combat skills at good ratings. and/or stealth. Ive seen some sick out of the box mages that only get better with every karma.


Now, i suppose, after the red rage left my eyes ( :grinbig: ) about the rule, there IS a bit of significance(doesnt mean i like it or have to use it, but i can see a small point.)

You can stack them with Synaptic Boosters but not Wired Reflexes. Boosters 3 plus Enhancers 3 equal Wired Reflexes 3 for well over half the essence cost.

Wired Reflex 3 plus Enhancers 3 equals not much more cyberware, a +6 total to reaction...but remember, human max is 9.

The only reason i figured this rule went in was to prevent the 'reaction dump'. I guess my reasoning is 'if someone wants to dump their stat and buy it up, it's their insane nuyen expenditure and essence their spending.'

I dont think it broke the game before and even tho SR4 is a vastly different system, i dont see how it will break it now. Ive stacked them before the FAQ and Seattle 2070 didnt implode, so i guess i can keep it houseruled like this. Everyones games are different tho and i can respect that...perhaps others have ran into trouble here that i havn't. (At least when gamers and GMs can talk to one another we can warn each other, ''watch out for this, use at own risk!'' and the like. :))

[Fortune]

[IvanTank]

[Konsaki]

There is the option, if your GM would allow it, to change your Karma into a Nuyen value and trade it for a piece of gear.
Lets say you really want that Synaptic Booster 3 for your char, but have no way in hell of getting it through black means. Well, the base cost for Basic grade Synaptic Booster 3 is 240,000. So, if you changed that into a BP value, you would need 48BP, which is a huge amount. Just make 1:1 converson of Karma to BP. For some reason, if you had saved up 48Karma and spend it all on getting that piece of gear, you would somehow get it.
Lets say your character heard of an experimental procedure being done for free from somewhere in the shadows, the only stipulation is the lab/clinic/whatever wanted a non-tracable source that had no way of trying to get compensation if things went wrong. The procedure is a success though, due to you paying karma, and you now have the effect of Basic Synaptic Boosters 3, complete with 1.5e loss.

[ElFenrir]

whoops...hehe, thanks. once again i was thinking of the old time 'synaptic accelerator'....which did not increase your reaction. :wobble:


My bad. im not thinking in total SR4-land yet....


Ok, so....if they ARE compatible with Boosters...and NOT with reflexes.....errrh.....now THAT is powerful. You'd think they would use it the other way around...


again.... :wobble:

[IvanTank]

[Jack Kain]

[Fortune]

So, what exactly do you default to if you don't have the proper Program?

[Jaid]

[jervinator]

Something I am still not getting.

[Fortune]

[Fortune]

[ElFenrir]

They should bring back the old rule of a characters cyberlimb base Strength attribute is equal to the Racial average, plus one. (Racial Average was 3+ Racial Modifiers.)

Human and Elves limbs had a base Strength of 4(3+1), Orks and Dwarves had a 6, and Trolls an 8.

I would say this for Body as well, since they are made of metal and are tougher than squishy meat and fragile bone.

Quickness was at the races base average rating. Nowadays, i guess Reaction and Agility would be at base Racial rating...giving Elves a nifty 4 base Agility limb. All else would have 3. Fair enough, with the amounts of importance tied to these attributes...but they would be boostable like anything else.

Torsos, i think should have a base body of Average +2...they are huge freaking hunks of metal replacing yourself. Damn right its going to be hard, tough, and protective. Though i'd at least settle for Average +1.

I guess you should be able to trick out a limb well, money pending...but perhaps you might want to limit it to, say, 3+ Natural Racial Maximum.

That way humans could trick their limbs up to 12(it should cost more each point over say 7-9, then more each point for 10,11,12). It will cost them, monatary wise, essence wise, and body wise, but as it stands people with augmented squishy parts do better than people with augmented titanium and steel parts.

Say if a torso isn't used, a character can still trick their limbs past a limit, but anything past, say, 3 boosts will cost Essence. If a torso is used, no Essence is lost. (So a human could trick a limb to 7 with no problem, but 8, 9, etc, will cost Essence with no Torso.)

Im just tossing out ideas. I'd have to actually sit down with the book, a pencil and some paper to see it written down and see reasonable, balanced costs, etc, and see how it looks.

Then again, perhaps with Augmentations, our prayers will be answered, viable cyberlimbs will come into play and we won't have to houserule anything. :D

[James McMurray]

[jervinator]

I hope so. It's enough to almost make me break down and at least pretend to follow a religion just so I can pray that that will happen.