Horrors, Cycle of Magic and Immortal Elves..., Will they still exist? Options

[Ellery]

Well, okay, to the extent that "sociopath" equates to "antisocial personality disorder", and that is defined to mean a condition which includes indifference to pain and punishment, you could be right. I'm not sure how such individuals characterize those who harm them.

Is there another term that means "individual who is psychopathic and lacks empathy (or has very selective empathy) and a sense of responsibility" that can apply to people who actively dislike being injured and hold immense ill will towards those who cause them pain or punish them? I'm pretty sure such people exist, having met several of them in my life. "Sociopath" seemed to me to be the best fit.

Um, looks like I just answered my own question: Dissocial Personality Disorder. By "sociopath" I meant "person suffering from DPD, not neccesarily APD".

[kelvingreen]

[FrostyNSO]

[kelvingreen]

[Ellery]

You made an indestructible character with 50 karma?! Are you sure you were using the karma rules the right way? I remember someone who thought karma was used like build points...switching the triangle progression to a linear one certainly made for ridiculously overpowered SR3 characters after not much play. (In general, linear progressions in power are trouble unless restrained in some way.)

[Grinder]

[mintcar]

I´d have thought the connection would be more exciting then...

[Grinder]

It's more exicting to have different villains with other motivation than "to feed on desire, pain and misery".

[Sharaloth]

[Ellery]

Well, we certainly have the full spectrum here.

How do the characters have time to invest all that karma in anything worthwhile? Or do individual runs take weeks, with months of downtime in between?

[Talia Invierno]

Heh, I'm finding that when we're playing out the background study and training (eg. what's happening in the LitS campaign here on Dumpshock), time suddenly becomes a highly valued commodity, and there's never enough of it. Tabletop: I've had a couple of PCs break the 1000 karma mark, but we play with a compulsory Bad Karma flaw and staggered karma pool, and then much of what remained of karma pool went to allies.

Oh, for the record I don't agree with most of your top-of-this-page assessment, Ellery, and I'd have used a different source for discussing psychiatric conditions myself (DMS-IV sourcebook, the gold standard of the industry: this links the bare bones of it): but now that the discussion's drifted back "on" topic, why drag it "off" again? :)

[Velocity]

Do runs really only take your groups one session to complete? The group I GM generally takes 4-6 sessions per run, sometimes more.

[Sharaloth]

We play fast and loose with the training rules, but it's actually fairly normal in the game to see months of downtime between runs, usually as the characters heal from whatever devastating injury they received in the last one. Once they get down to Moderate injury I assume they're well enough to continue healing and still practice skills and pick up new ones, they can't go all out yet, but they can still spend those karma points. Even then, I don't really pay much attention to the training rules except when the character's are picking up totally new skills that they could not conceivably learn from the other characters (and consistent NPC's) or on their own. The training and study rules slow character progression down a lot, and that just doesn't fit with the tone and style of this campaign.

The runs themselves usually take 2-3 sessions to complete. The big ones can take twice as many. The 50 in 10 sessions was assuming 1 session/run as an average game with 3 karma/run being the low end and 15 karma/run being a high end (and 60 being rediculously high powered), YMMV of course, but that was the basic point anyways.

[Ellery]

Talia, the DSM-IV, as far as I know, doesn't actually use the term "sociopath". They score something called "Antisocial Personality Disorder" (APD, #301.7), and that doesn't fit what I was thinking of particularly well. The DSM-IV typically has disorders which are characterized by "three or more out of [a list of eight or so]", from which one can construct two or three entirely different sets of symptoms. That's okay for making a diagnosis, but not so helpful when trying to communicate a specific defect.

ICD-10, while not as widely accepted as DSM-IV for mental use, is put out by the World Health Organization (generally a pretty reputable bunch), and describes a condition that I have personally observed (as a non-expert) and matches what I was thinking of when I used the ill-defined term "sociopath". In particular, the insensitivity to threat of punishment coupled with rapid anger and resort to violence against frustration (punishment is usually frustrating), and backed up by rationalizations exactly match the characteristics I'd expect of a child who characterized their parents' attempts at discipline as "evil" despite the parents acting fairly typically.

As far as the exact content of the disagreement goes, as opposed to definitions and clarifications of what I was saying...well, okay, I'll be quiet and get back on topic now.

I typically play with training/learning rules in force, and it does tend to cut down the five-week rise of a character from nobody to God-King of the Earth. If it were really that easy to learn so much so quickly, everyone would be doing it. Then again, I tend to like a good dose of realism in my games. If I just want to whack bad guys and power up, I can go play World of Warcraft or something. As such, the higher the power level of the game is, the more cautious everyone needs to be--mistakes and excess aggression can rapidly turn lethal. Besides which, I don't view karma as XP, where the bigger the monster is, the more karma you get. Rather, it's a mark both of accomplishment and of what you've learned. When you're good, and you perform up to your abilities, you get a nice reward, but not 10x more than someone who is just starting out who performs up to their abilities.

[Kagetenshi]

For the record, Sociopathy is only not a DSM-recognized disorder to the degree that manic-depression is not a DSM-recognized disorder—the terms have been deprecated, but they still quite clearly refer to a single recognized disorder.

~J

[Sharaloth]

Ah, Ellery, if it was as simple as 'whack bad guys and power up', it wouldn't be Shadowrun at all, would it? I readily admit the nonstandard nature of my campaign, but I haven't diverged that much from the core world and feel of SR. I have, however, taken the metaplot and the ED connections and run with them.

Even closer to on topic: In my campaign the cycle of magic has been sped up even more than in the canon timeline (thanks in no small part to the actions of the characters themselves). This means, and the players are well aware of it, that the Horrors will be making an appearance quite soon. I find the Horrors to be very useful for a campaign like mine. I don't have and have never read either of the Harlequin books, so all I'm going on are the ED Horrors book and the Dragonheart Trilogy, which means I'm going to be making most stuff up with regards to where the Horrors come from and what their stats and abilities will be (would anyone in 2065 SINless Seattle even notice a Horror Mark? Or are they all so desensitized and dehumanized already that such things are nothing to them? What about a 0.01 Essence Street Sammy, is there even enough left of their spirit for a Horror to feed from, or is it like trying to get blood from a stone?), but the history is all there, and the connections that can be brought up have already been made in the main metaplot. This makes my job as GM much more fun (and easier too). I'm using the Horrors and the ED connections, but I could just as easily ignore them entirely. So long as these connections stay as they are now, rumors and small easily missed details and offhand comments from some of the more colourful posters on Shadowland, then keeping the whole ED-SR thing should be no problem for anyone. It's there to ignore or exploit, do with it as you will. There, my 2 :nuyen:

[Ellery]

Hm, I wasn't aware of that Kage. Do you know why the term was deprecated? Just PC terminology, or was there something more to it?

[Kagetenshi]

I believe it was just PC (or perhaps more precise) terminology, but I'll check with one of the psych professors on Wednesday.

~J

[Ellery]

[Cheops]

I don't see how people can be so negative about a game we've heard even less aobut than the crappy ass FAQs from SR4 when most people agree that the original SR video games were good.

Anyway, my problem with the horrors et al is that it IS getting more blatant...or at least was--gotta wait until September or October before I see the new direction. It wasn't just hints and background stuff anymore it was getting OBVIOUS. An entire chapter in SOTA 64 about adept paths? Go check out the Adept's Way. New adept powers in SOTA 64? Go read the Chapter on Talents. Shadowmants and Brithans now exist in SR along with, briefly, naturally occuring orichalcum and true elements (thank you FASA). Spell matrices now exist in SR.

Sure it may just be very blatant to me because I play as much ED as I do SR but the connections were getting more obvious. Course I do get jollies out of seeing them, just like whenever Canada gets mentioned in a non-Canadian show, but they're not part of my enjoyment of the game. I'd rather see more about AIs, the struggles and machinations of a world increasingly divided, or a resurgence of the Neo-Anarchists (who seem to have disappeared...).

[SL James]

[DrJest]

[SL James]

You're like the gazillionth person to do so.

[Cheops]

And that quote...as has been pointed out a zillion times...is by a graphics guy who probably has next to zero say in the actual design of the game apart from graphics.

Hmm...have heard that about Loose Alliances...too bad that none of the gaming stores in my community have...hope to see it by the time everyone else sees SR4

[Ellery]

Cheops--in case you were referring to me, I'm not being negative about the MS game. I simply thought the quote looked funny next to Sharaloth's "it wouldn't be Shadowrun at all" statement. (And I think even a "graphics guy" can tell a FPS apart from a RPG or strategy game.)