Oi Chums,

I have only banned one thing. The Orgy Spell.

Boooooo! Hissssss!

For shame sir, for shame! Orgy spell + crowded club = epic lolz.

On a slightly more serious note, my GM has banned:

1. Large enough concentrations of explosives to take out major corporate headquarters.
2. AI PC's.
3. Recreation of natural disasters using spirits.
4. The 'dead parents' backstory.
5. OOC politics discussions.
6. Any food that can not be eaten quietly and with minimal concentration.

(Explosives and disaster options were bought up in a OOC discussion of things the group would like to do if we were running a one-shot. We have yet to try either.)

That is just silly talk...

Keep the Faith

Ever seen the movie The Gods Must be Crazy? Nǃxau, the Namibian bush farmer who played one of the main characters (he finds the coke bottle), was paid a few hundred dollars for the role, had never seen more than 3 white people before being cast, didn't know his own age, and allegedly let his payment blow away because he didn't understand the concept of money (much less paper money). Even after several films and better pay and a better understanding of money he returned to farming, but never kept more than 20 head of cattle, supposedly because he had difficulty counting higher than that.

And here's another thing, your typical animal character is going to think of numbers differently. 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 is a "linear" progression. There is substantial scientific evidence to support this, namely figuring out how babies understand quantities (they can tell the difference between 5 and 10 very well, but not 10 and 11). The story I heard included a segment where a researcher was communicating with some indigenous people to the Amazonian jungle asking them to find the number that is half way between 1 and 9 (5, obviously, 1 + 9 = 10, half of 10 is 5. Wrong. Its 3, 1 times 3 is 3, times 3 is 9).

Of course now your conflicting animal intelligence, (which running wild I hear covers fairly well) and sapient intelligence. A sapient animal character would pick up knowledge just like any other sapient character, though their nature may give them a different outlook.

Everything I posted was on human beings. The Namibians don't have a concept of money, value, or age (its not needed in their culture). The Amazonian peoples didn't have a linear counting method, but a logarithmic one.

My point was "I can't speak directly for an animal mind, but here are some examples of a human mind who's culture doesn't teach them these concepts, and an animal mind would have grown up similarly lacking those cultural ideas."

Why? It is just a mechanically superior version of the Mass Agony Spell. If you don't like the concept, at least consider making (Mass) Agony mechanically equal to Orgasm/Orgy. Is Orgasm fine in your rounds?

I made a bear/troll shifter not to long ago who had "Japanese 2" and had "Sushi Bars 4" as a knowledge skill.
Why?

Because he though with his stomach. He was dumb as a post, but he was quickly able to find that the easiest way to get raw salmon was to go to sushi places. From there he just spent almost every dime he had on getting "Real" food. One place put to much soy sauce on it and he couldn't taste the salmon and he sent it back.

Place quickly went out of business when it got around that their food was so bad even a troll wouldn't eat it.

He couldn't count real well, but he got the concept of "money = food".

See, that's what I mean. A shifter isn't going to look at $100,000 and go "what could I do with that?" and think of 100,000 $1 items, and 1,000 $10 items, and 10 $1000 items and 1 $100000 item trying to decide which to buy (like the rest of us do). They'll have a few things they want (like sushi) that it doesn't matter what it costs, they'll fork over the money (and a substantial tip).

If a shifter is looking at a new piece of gear, remarking on how it might make his job easier, sure he'll go "ok $30,000 for that I've got less than that, I need to save" but its not like the rest of us.

Why on earth do you say that?

It depends entirely on how much experience the shifter has had with metahuman society, how high of an Etiquette skill they have, and/or how high their Intuition and Logic attributes are. Reversing your logic, most three-year-old kids must actually be shapeshifters since many of them have a similar view of money. And most of that lesson comes from realizing that money doesn't grow on trees and the self-awareness that they have to plan for the future. Once you realize -- and this is something any shifter can learn really quickly -- that the less you spend to get what you want the more you have to get other things you want, they're as good as gold.

Bartering, trading and finance are not instinctual characteristics of metahumans like you guys seem to be trying to suggest. It's 100% learned. It boggles me that some of you are trying to make shifters out as being mentally retarded or something. Most of them have higher mental maximums that half of the metahuman races do. Especially wolves, foxes, and eagles. Trolls and orks are the ones who should be having a harder time figuring these things out...

In the case of my shifter he had a logic of 1 (see dumb as a post). He wasn't rude or violent, he just operated the best he could with his limited understanding.

As for the reversing logic, you just have that bass-ackwards. You can't say all 3 year olds are shifters, you might be able to say all shifters act like 3 year old kids. Again it comes down to intelligence, exposure times and mentors. Right out of the woods all shifters might act like a 3 year old, but if you have good guides and some brains you can leapfrog up the comprehension curve. Low intelligence and no friends to help you out and you'll be close to feral for a long time. Also mentors influence is HUGE in helping a shifter setup their world view. You can think of them as a parent of sorts.

Why do you guys think that once an animal becomes a sapient that they continue living in the boonies with mommy and daddy wolf for the rest of their lives? Have to admit I love dogs, but if I was surrounded by just dogs ALL the time it would drive me crazy in no time at all. One of the first things they would do imo is go explore since well you know there is that common concept that affects all mammals called boredom (if you don’t think animals get bored well you must not have been around too many animals). As far as learning, don't think it would be that hard at all to pick up concepts, now they may not speak fluently since their thoughts in general will be operating differently to begin with. It would be much like speaking a different language with different concepts. However, in time one language will overwrite another if they don't use them both with the same consistency.

The main difference would be instincts. Humans for the most part don’t have any. Your typical fight or flight types for example would be much more on the surface and shock in general will be taken over by that. Where a human might stand and stare at some horror, an animal is much more likely to run away or if they cannot, attack it regardless of consequences. Also trying to get any type of predator animal to not chase something would be extremely difficult, and it could make for some interesting problems. Add into that alphas and the rest of the “pack” and things could be very difficult if they don’t see someone else as a higher level authority. Of course this won’t all apply to every type of shapeshifter.

And last but not least can you seriously imagine that a shapeshifter spending all it’s time in one form? Try explaining to your landlords why there is a lion or bear in your apartment might be a bit difficult.

Eh? Humans are chock full of instincts. Practically everything we do is instinct-driven. It's just our self-awareness and intellect allows us to override those instincts if we focus enough on the task. Which would be true of shapeshifters, though their driving instincts would be slightly different from our own.

Eating when you feel hungry, checking out a hot chick's ass, and being startled when someone sneaks up behind you are all instinctual behaviors. If humans didn't have instincts, we'd all be dead. Sure, a lot of earlier instincts have been bred out over time, but they're still there... just subdued.

That is why soldiers go through basic and perform all that training. It's not about skills or learning, it's about building base instincts for when the brain freezes so that you body is reacting before your brain comprehends so you don't get fragged.

... You can use capsule rounds to deliver ingested vector toxins... if you use DMSO. It's almost like you don't look at the rules.

My point isn't neccessarily that the dosage is complete fluff (I should have been more clear, sorry), but that the rules for capsule rounds overwrite the dosage size (if it really is a rule at all). Capsule rounds ask for a dose of a drug, you supply P4MO, and have fun.

In any event, I said I don't allow it so I'm not sure why you're arguing with me.

Because they're his/her parents and family. Just because you're smarter than your family doesn't mean you want to leave.

Besides, the shifter can still communicate with them, unlike you and your dogs.

I have a book for you to read, the author managed to portray animals as animals despite the main character being able to hold coherent conversations with them.

Dragon Champion

On a similar note, the Belgariad series has interesting conversations between (mainly) wolves and people. Very interesting, as the author(s) created a small society complete with traditions for wolves, and the best part is that they make sense.

Piqued my interest:
Do they howl at the moon? Why?

They really didn't cover that much into it, but they had very interesting things. In the words of the wolves, "We howl at the moon because it is tradition." They never question tradition, which lead to interesting lines in the series, such as when a wolf asked why a person wore armor or rode a horse instead of running or transforming into a wolf, the person would answer "Because it is tradition," and the wolf would reply "Oh, then tradition cannot be questioned," and drop the line of questioning.

Heh, kinda neat. Still, EEK (author of Dragon Champion) actually gave howling a reason:
Inter-pack communication.

"I, Greathunter Brokentail, and my pack took down a moose in hunting today! We will feast for days!"

Kind of stuff. They don't really expect replies, but they do have short back and forths sometimes.

Oh, and despite the long names there was a shortened version. For our above wolf it would be Great-Broken, IIRC the convention correctly (its been about 4 years since I read the book and the main character's--who is a draogn--short name is the only one I remember and I can't remember the full thing; ??Fire??-Longtail and Fire-Long).

You've never heard of David Eddings? He was one of the most famous fantasy authors in the last century (died this year). His books may not have been the best written, however his characters where some of the most entertaining around. To answer the question no they didn’t howl at the moon, they where a family of mages that could shapechange. Technically they could change into anything, however certain forms felt better and where more natural (typically wolves and hawks/owls). Infact one of the supporting characters was actually a wolf that could transform, however most of it's ablities where given to it by a god.

If you are going from different perspectives in books, in most of the ones that show animals that are actually sapient from “The Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe” series, certain Marcedes Lackey’s Valdemar books, too Jane Lindskold’s “Through Wolf’s Eyes” series, the sapient animals look in horror (or at least sadness) about the prospect of just becoming animals.

In the Wheel of Time series you have another perspective where wolves just are and they are intelligent and they sound pretty much like what you mentioned from the Dragon Champion series. The same can be said for the classic Watership Down and the popular series based on Redwall (mice, rabbits, whatever). However in all those I would consider most of the animals in them sapient even having their own culture.

Guess main point am trying to make is that a normal wolves thought process wouldn’t be “"I, Greathunter Brokentail, and my pack took down a moose in hunting today! We will feast for days!" it would probably be more like “come food” if you could put in words, which they don’t. It’s more of a combination of noise/posture

It's not "come, food." He's not inviting the other packs over to share, he's telling them "we did something awesome."

Remember, wolf packs are territorial, but have strong pack loyalty (and there is a very clear pecking order).

Than if "talking" to someone outside his pack it would probably be closer to "mine, leave" = snarling/growling proceeding with attacking the other group if required. Animals don't have a language, the most complicated thought process we have identified in any animals is for dolphins and good luck trying to get an idea of what they are saying. I mean how where we supposed to know that doing a double-backwards-somersault through a hoop whilst whistling the "Star Spangled Banner" actually means "So long and thanks for all the fish"?

Btw sorry for the off topicness

This isn't about us communicating with animals, this is about how an animal communicates with another of its species translated into complex thoughts for the benefit of the reader.

Within the fiction, the wolves have their own language, squirrels have another, and birds yet another (birds are probably by far the most simple minded of the animals presented). The main character has his own native tongue and has learned many others (there are in fact times when he's talking to a humanoid and they'll slip from one language to another, but to the reader its all English).

This it exactly. For the reader's benifit they are taking the extremely simple communication that the animals are doing and translating and adding meaning it into to make a more entertaining story.

Guess if I am going extremely non-PC, best way to describe it would be what would happen if everyone you know parents/friends/everyone was mentally retarded to the mentality of a 3 year old. How long would it take for you to want to go get more interaction? Sure you would love them, but you would seem extremely wierd to eachother to the point of some types of animals casting you out for being defective. Ofcourse this is just going based off the nature aspect of it, which affect is lessed when you add in the nurture aspect of growing up.

This happens to every teenager ever. They usually go off to college.

Though more likely its not "having a family of 3 year olds" but having a family of stubborn clods who don't want to change; a family that lives "in the now" and refuses to think about the past or the future.

It's a slightly different kind of frustrating, but I do agree, many shifters would want to get away from that, but then like every teenager ever, they're "just like their parents" ("Oh my god, I sound just like my father." "At least one of us does"). To a normal metahuman the shifter would act in ways that have the same characteristics that the shifter would think when comparing themselves to their family (things aren't black and white, there are an infinite shades of gray).

I tend to think more of how they treated Fiver in "Watership Down". There was something unnatural about him and they feared him, but the were always ready to accept the help he could give.

I didn't know Mr. Eddings died..

Wolf, however, was an orphaned wolf cub that Poledra picked up along the way, and was totally wolf, and Poledra is the aformentioned wolf shifter.

Yea who has ever heard of a rabbit with a lack of fear.

Damn it. I still haven't read that.

Not that I have an interest mind, but so many people keep referencing it.

And I'm like, "Nooo idea what you're yakkin' about."

Watership Down is awsome. I've read it about 3 times.

Poledra (loved her) the wolf shifter that only really stayed in human form to have the babies (because she didn't think dad would like to have cubs) and who when made an apperance in the books was a Owl 90% of the time and who everyone thought was dead. That Poledra? =D

Hmmm reading that makes it sound really messed up, but it worked great. Anyone else feel like making a SR character based off of Silk in the books now?

Get the movie as its a little less dense, but you'll get the general flavor.

In short all rabbits are named after plants. Fiver was the runt of the litter and was not expected to live, so they never gave him a name (they just referred to him as the fifth one). Basically fiver is a psychic and can see the future and spirits and just generally all sort of supernatural stuff.

I named the Awakened rabbits I stated out a few months ago after their mythology. Link to the post.

I'll do that then.

I don't really have a banned list permanently.
I just cycle through things depending on what everyone wants.

*shrug*
Currently, it's, "No racial choices except for Human, Elf, Dwarf, Orc, or Troll; no meta-variants."

But that's not always a rule.
Just depends on what everyone wants.


The only rule I have at any time is, "If it happens during play and no one can agree on the rule, we don't argue, the GM declares it for now, we move on, and we'll check that later for future knowledge."

But I think many folks have that, as it just helps streamline game play in a game with many sourcebooks and very poor book organization.

I blame Striper.

we didnt at a time. but we also had one very opinionated player. see my earlier post in this thread. i think its the second one.

While we are on the time.

The Wolves of Time by William Horwood is perfect reading for a view of intellctual animal types.

I think the problem with most different types of intelligence (dragons, IE's, AI's, animals, insects, horrors, and if you want to go to other systems, gods and devils) is they almost always come off feeling too human. That is, the difference between say a wolf, a wolf shapeshifter and a human doesn't have to be on an axis between dumb and smart, but simply different. (I suppose we could frame the argument that Sapience is a negative quality. )

1. No more NOOBS. I know this sounds rough, but I'm about to start a campaign with some veterans who are all intelligent, well spoken, and can join me for a beer after [or during] the game. My only other "successful" campaign was done with an original crew of veterans, who stuck with me from beginning to end, suspended their disbelief and could play light as well as dramatic roles at the drop of a hat. I've had over ten years to learn games and teach them, it's time for me to start telling more intelligent stories for people my own age.

2.Core Book Only, Most of the time. All except this most recent Campaign, I allow new characters to come out of the SR4 Core Book only. The only exception is when I know the player really well, and I've had experience gaming with them before. Ask me about my friends DracoForm-Adept-Face in regards to this rule XD

"He's learning how to fly."
*smack!*
"... Does bouncing count?"

Silk would be hard to do. You could make a sneak-sammie, tough face, or parkour-type adept with the same kind of wisecracking attitude. The character from the book, though, was a skill monkey, hard enough to do in SR4, and he was damn good at most of it, on top of that. He was basically a face, a covert ops specialist, and a speed sammie all rolled into one.

One of my players is close (except the Face part, he is ABYSMAL at that!). He was a rigger/hacker, but since he spent the rest of his essence on Move By Wire 3, he has been a speed sammie as well, and has Skills galore with the built-in skillwires.
I think you could approximate Silk with MBW3, and some other cyber, plus some good Charisma.

Because Bull brought it up and I just wanted to elaborate:

The response in The Matrix was appropriate. Neo walked into a building armed to the teeth with automatic weapons, shot the guard manning the metal detector, and then shot the guards that were sitting around.

Even though every single one of those people were just that - people, plugs - they still held the possibility of becoming Agents. So shooting every last one of them was a smart tactic, though very, very loud. And as you notice, the big guns get called in right away: out comes the guys with high powered weaponry and in full riot gear. Hell, you see more of them up on the rooftop - and then the Agents show up.

So they were acting exactly within Bull's parameters - you pull out the big guns, and the guys you're up against are going to do the same - and if that ain't enough and you're treading on the wrong corporate ground, they'll go over and above you and pull out the cyberzombie.

Just an idle thought as I read the rest of the thread.

What I don't allow in my games runs across all the systems I play:

No...

... laptops with Internet connections unless you're the Game Master. If you find it easier to track your stats on your lappy, that's fine. But you will not be surfing the Internet or IMing with your friends during a game. Even when I GM I just use a pencil and scratch paper. Graph paper is great for stat boxes.
... notes to the GM. All communication is out in the open. All players should be experienced enough to understand what their PCs know in-character and what they as players know.
... secrets (unless you're the GM. Why would you spoil the surprise of an adventure?). If a PC has a secret he wishes to keep from the other PCs, he should establish that in an out-of-character context. In turn, all other players should respect that their character doesn't know the secret. This may seem counter to the "spirit" of Shadowrun but when everyone knows what's going on, collaboration in the game-world is stronger.
... dropping a character because of boredom. When a player creates a PC that PC is his baby and I expect it to be treated as such. Dismissing one idea for another in mid-session is disruptive. It's also a sign that a player isn't pushing his own creativity.
... house rules. I don't think I'm smarter than the developer who created the game I play. I'll make determinations when rules come into question but that's more like a judge determining legal application than a legislator actually drafting laws; which is essentially what you're doing when you're house ruling. And, yes, there are certain rules that bug me from time to time but I usually just go with what my gut says. But if I'm having to do that often, it's a bad game and I don't play it.

I'm debating banning gender-bending as I've yet to meet a male who can portray a female and it not be an irritating stereotype. Or degenerate into lipstick lesbianism when a male romantic interest comes into play. At the same time, if a guy isn't getting enough trim at home and that's his sexual outlet, who am I to say "no"? These are the things that keep me up at night.

I personally allow gender bending but I suppose it helps that in the past I've GM'd for groups that bore more resemblance to the character list of Rent than to the stereotypical RPG table.

I'd say that believable cross-gender roleplay is generally easier for my players to portray than believable 3meter 600lb metahumans...

I love secrets and notes to the GM! in fact I like notes to other players to help facilitating keeping the GM in the dark on occassion! even when, or especially when I'm the GM. If I'm playing in a game I dont mind knowing some stuff that my char doesnt know but if player A is doing some dirty or slightly nefarious stuff I usually dont want to know OOC if I dont know in character. why? so I dont have a chance to use unfairly gained knowlege. my favorite example of this would be: the party finishes a run and as payment they get an item that is worth alot but noone really wants so the party wants to sell it and get some nY. player A is good at getting the best price since he has social skills and wonderful contacts so the party agrees that player A should sell the item and everyone will split the proceeds. Alas player A is a little naughty he gets a smashing deal! but he divides the proceeds as follows player A 200k nY, player B 50k nY, Player C 50k nY, Player D 50k nY, Player E 50k nY. noone notices though because they were expecting 20-40k so player A gets away with a beautiful scam maybe many times! why? and why is this an ok thing? because the dodo's didnt want to get contacts and social skills, they wanted to kick butt in combat and they didnt shadow and snoop on player A to make sure they didnt get stiffed. while if they new OOC next time something like that happens they would probably get anoying and want to go with player A when making the deals to sell the loot, not because they got wise to the fox but because they had unfairly gained info.

I know it's been a week, but I'd like to emphasize though that this doesn't necessarily imply that people aren't very instinct driven. In fact, it can very easily be argued that a lot of resocialization and combat training is not just about building conditioned responses from scratch, but reshaping already existing impulses to better suit the military's goals and to sublimate the natural reactions that do not align with those goals. For example, running away from danger is a pretty human instinct, but so is protecting those people in your social group that you've come to care about, depend on and identify with, since we are very social animals. It's easier to sublimate the natural anxiety and fears associated with combat when you're doing so with the support and benefit of your group.

This cannot be emphasized enough. If I know it, my character will never be able to discover it on his own.

*raises open hand to the sky* Ac-TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!


Cotton balls in the mouth. It worked for Brando.