Beg to differ. Social networks are censorable, especially if corp propaganda will coax you into the corp network (because that's where all your corp brat buddies are). If you disappear they will be told you moved away/had kawaru visit you/other random bullshit. It's how China treats the Web, with success. And no newspaper, no blogger and no friendlist will save you.

Depends on the friendslist.

Certainly got Netcat out of trouble.

Netcat's not a cop citizen living on corp ground.

uh, same thing that happened to Samizdat prohibited literature printers?
As in - nothing, nobody gave a damn?

Is said contact Netcat, a techno?

Following in this post is a list of countries with free, objective and not (self-)censored media.
Now, let's not go this way any further, and not discuss RL politics.

She was in Corp hands... Heavily armed Corp Hands at that.

Huh. It was common practice in East Germany to blacklist people who read Der Spiegel or watch West German TV for jobs, so that they would not find employment, and for several other niceties. Sure, they were not carted off to Bauzen to have a sitting in front of the Cobalt lamps but it was certainly repression. Doesn't always have to be a gulag.


Yup. I'd probably not turn my back on the guy then, but I'd never anyhow; however, it wasn't nice bot nothing I'd stone him for either.


*s* Yeah, sure, let's not go there (never meant self censorship though, but top-down censorship).


That's not the same.

I was talking about the PCs. That adventure is deathtrap difficulty.

I miss the arc runs They were a nice change of pace from the usual sneak in sneak out. It was like Aliens as opposed to Oceans 11.

"Game over man! Game Over!"

Getting back to SWA, I really liked it. I don't have years of experience with ShadowRun. I've not read all the books in all the editions, nor even read any of the novels. I've played one or two adventures/missions in 2nd edition, maybe one adventure in 3rd, and fell in love with the system. Being able to read SWA and get a broad overview og why the world is the way it is was very useful for me.

As for /dev/grrl, her questions are my questions, just that I'm male, talk differently, and don't wear pink fingernail polish. Also, as stated earlier, I don't have extensive knowledge of the world/system, so she is who she is. I don't know any better.

I thought the random texts from the year in question were a very nice part of 6WA actually. But then as a history student I tend to like "sources from back then"

I thought that (huge editing mistakes aside), the history section was much more interesting than the country section; those were all too short to be really useful.

Personally, I never really minded the /dev/grrl thing, but it didn't stand out as particularly nice either.

I liked the random shadowtalk for getting a broader view on the year than just the blurb and timeline, but some of them felt like coming into half of a conversation. There's quite a few that seem like there was another shadowtalker that got slashed in editing, but no one picked out the response.

I always saw that as the SysOps trimming files for size occasionally. But, then, I rationalize a lot in my head.

This is my new operating theory.

But again, my issue was that the articles provided often didn't seem to have a thing to do with the time in question. Here we'd be talking about the Nightwraith strike...but they'd be talking about some politician or something that I hadn't heard of until that point. And I've been reading Shadowrun since early in the 2e days!

Which is fine, as long as some sort of hint is put in the text somewhere. I'd end up relying on the shadowtalk to pick up on what that was, but a few times I had to go to the Sixth World Wiki to even get what year it was. IMO, it was just terribly laid out.

I've pretty much laid out my problems with /d/; not that she's young, or a girl, or acts feminine, it's that there's no justification for a character with her level of ignorance posting on Jackpoint. If they wanted a noob window, I'll repeat again, use a previously established character like GnuB, who gives you the double-shot of being an idiot and being someone from older books for nerds like me to go, "yay, GnuB's back!"

Beg your pardon, who's GnuB? Where has he been used? Haven't seen him (although I've seen a bunch of different noobs and one-time shadowtalkers in the books...).

I personally don't have a problem with "clueless" characters. They're great to justify exposition, after all.

However, they need to either wise up over time or get dead right quick. Shadowrunning is not a kind nor forgiving business.

And then get replaced by new clueless characters.



-k

Which is, to an extent, what's happened. Slamm-0!, for instance, used to be the village idiot (the brash young decker who was almost as good as he thought he was), maturity-wise...but time's passed and things change. He's still younger than most of the rest of the JP crowd, but someone else had to fill the "actual youngster" nook. So we got /dev/.

We'll always have Chicago...



Like I said, a young AI is a better fit for a clueless noob with the kind of power and perspective that would offer something to Jackpoint...

Oh, I'm not arguing, trust me. I'm not a huge /dev/ fan, myself, but writing with inherited characters is part of a freelancer's lot in life. I'm just making a guess as to what the motivation was for her initially being added to the group.

He's all over 3e material. For instance, in Year of the Comet he talks a lot in the Ibn Isa chapter.

I personally like /dev/ better than GnuB, but to each their own I suppose.

Indeed...

I keep saying, hand her character concept over to me. I'll fix those problems right quick.

And, really, no one could figure out who was on John-117s friendslist, and just how much support he'd get?

I like /dev/grrl mostly because I think her online handle is cute. I don't care that much about most of the shadowtalker's bios except when they might be useful in game (which hasn't happened yet).

As for the the Sixth World almanac, I think it was OK, though not great. The Amazonia writeup could have been better (Super-Sayajin Jesus? Really?).

I didn't understand the super-sayajin jesus part.

Pop-Culture Reference. They age badly.

Then again, the Hacker in my group threw a Pokeball and called out, "I choose you, Optimus Prime!" when he engaged his Attack Program.

I was the primary writer of /d/ in the "In Their Face" section of Attitude, so I would very much like to step in and give my thoughts on the character.

I certainly understand people's low opinion of /d/ even though my opinion differs greatly. I, personally, find myself really getting behind her. Her fiction piece in Unwired is what sold me on the character, as she proved that she really isn't some clueless nitwit who can't pull her load. Yes, she's girly. Yes, she seems out of her element. And, yes, her youth makes her seem very alien to most readers. All these factors are just "on the surface". Beneath her naivety and youthful exuberance lies a competent hacker; a youth who can be a girly-girl and still get the job done. Not all Shadowrunners need to be cut from the same "bad-ass" cloth.

Another point has been raised regarding whether or not she belongs on Jackpoint. I'll agree that perhaps she's a bit too inexperienced to have been invited, but it's just one of those things. Hell, we've had folks in the White House who weren't necessarily qualified to be in office (Georgie, I'm looking at you, pal)... but they reached that lofty position nonetheless. So, then, why is it so hard to accept the fact that /d/ was invited to be on the 'Point? Weird things happen.

When writing /dev/grrl, I tried to show that she's still very much a teenager but at the same time, she has grown some. You'll find that, at times, she attempts to be more professional, even though her youth still makes its way to the forefront frequently. Ideally, she will continue maturing and we'll see her grow up before our eyes as the years progress. I think it will be a fun evolution to watch, as I have no doubt that sh has the potential to be an impacting character once she gets all the "whatev's" out of her system.

Y'know, and I'm not opposed to that. I don't want people thinking that I want the game run one way and only that way. I'm completely fine with a character coming into their own. It's just that at my first rub with her, I found myself skipping anything she had to say, because it was so balls-on oblivious and naive that it came off as, "why is this girl working in the shadows?".

I - again - would like to reiterate that I have no problem with characters of a non-badass nature talking on Jackpoint. It's just that her presence seemed out of left field in a gathering of hardcore mercenary types that have years of experience in the shadows of the Sixth World. If there'd been a piece wherein Fastjack brings her on and talks about her, fine, we get some character establishment. But in Almanac, it's just, "whoop, here's this little girl, now everyone hold her hands." It was just plain weird.

I'm honestly more afraid that people think that I'm stuck on I HATE GIRLY GIRLS GET THAT PINK OFF OF MY BOOKS IT BELONGS ON MOHAWKS. I have someone in my life - my wife - who is a girly-girl. I live in an apartment stuffed with plastic horses (not My Little Pony, but she has those too) next to my gaming books. Hell, I watched an episode of MLP last night with her (and if you haven't caught it? I'm being dead serious, do. It's hilarious.) But yet, she's the one playing the combat monster troll with soak up the WHOA and makes her living charging into groups of enemies and tossing them around like footballs every Saturday night. It's a really personal thing that I want girls of all stripes to get involved in the hobby, because maybe then we'll finally evolve to the point where she can walk into a gaming store and not feel like every eye is on her.

And if they can take /d/, and make her a part of that? I'd really appreciate it. I would cheer for the author who did that. The Sixth World is full of different people, and I'm happy for change. But I want change that feels organic, and that's why /d/ bothered me so much. "Here's a dumb cutey girl, have at!" is what it felt like. So I'm going to be a little critical, I apologize.

Well, they had the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio constantly surrounded by a giant blazing purple aura. And they also had the Iguaçu falls double in size. As far as I know, they did this because Ancient History had written they hadn't changed before he left, and so they thought writing that they hadn't changed in the replacement text would be some sort of copyright violation. In other words, for no good reason. Even if it would have been somehow illegal to mention those landmarks and say they hadn't changed, simply not mentioning them would have been better than writing what they did, IMHO.

It's not just that it's unnecessarily over-the-top, but it also has no relevance to actual play whatsoever. Those things took up space that could have been used by elements PCs are more likely to get involved with.

My friend's Antagonist shaman has Starscream for patron spirit.


Yeah, CGL has a sad tendency there. Attitude, though, looks notably better than Almanac and War so far, to be fair.


Yes, but seeing as how this is fiction (where cohesion is more important than in real life), a shared universe with a certain style and that everyone's right sick of moe anime girl hackers (after Bebob's Ed, it all went downhill IMO). Not saying that all runners must be the same, but prancing my little pony girlies are kind of ... unfit to stand what amounts to urban warfare when the shit hits the fan. As a remote hacker, fine (until someone traces her at least), but not on-site. If it's a facade, though, fair enough.


American politicans, like those in any democracy, are essentially exchangable talking heads that work the agendas of others. Democracy isn't the political system that often gives rise to great political leaders or even intends to. The ideal democratic politican is of average intelligence, empathic, skilled in choosing friends and delegating tasks to people who can do them and then tell them what to do, and have no scruples to make himself the puppet of others. Further, if it does allow a gifted, intelligent and sharp leader to rise, democracycalls them demagogues and populists and tries it's best to grind them down (like Obama, like Nixon, like Le Pen, like Berlusconi, like Chavez), with more or less success. That's not bad in itself, because strongman, talented and instpiring leaders are overrated anyway and usually only cause one mess after another with increasing time in office and increasing hubris and arrogance.

Shadowrunners, on the other hand, do not have the vast machinery of support personnel, lobbyists, and interests backing them that a politican does. Politicans need to be able to talk and sometimes choose between which interest to act on, which comes down to about the same competence trequired as for a news anchor. Shadowrunners are out for themselves in circumstances most politicans are totally unfit for and wouldn't last one job. You can't really compare that. Both are demanding jobs, but they have very, very different demands made.


Fastjack made other and even stranger choices to populate his little forum, like Puck, who was heavily implicated in the murder of a good friend of him, Captain Chaos. What is much more jarring is that none of the hard-ass types in Jackpoint call her out on her crap every once in a while, but treat them as a respected member of the Seattle runner community.


No offense to you, but that's already slightly annoying with Slamm-O and Netcat (my pet hate character anyway) and their happy family time. While evolution of 'talkers is nice, it doesn't have to be a sitcom.

There have always been shadowtalkers who don't fit the "professional" angle - Kane commits mass murder and acts of wanton destruction just to boost his herostratic fame, how professional is that?
And from experience I can say that girlishness and ballsy attitude can be two sides of the same coin


But what I do find annoying about /dev/g is her "I did a paper" thing, which blurs the line between "shadow knowledge" and popular knowledge.

Well, I have to say, she was right about proper attire while riding a skateboard. Shows at least some common sense.

And, after working Tech Support, I can personally tell you how rare a thing that is, despite the first part of it's name.

Oh, pish-posh, don't be such a hater. Ed made Cowboy BeBop even more enjoyable.

Yeah, I'm going to have to disagree with you on this.

Hackers especially are going to run the vast gamut of races, genders, types, likes and dislikes. Look at hacking nowadays - no longer the purview of a bunch of nerds sitting in a computer lab chortling about sneaking into the NSA database, hackers nowadays range from /b/astards to Anonymous to script kiddies to an ex-military hacker working as a gray hat. That's not even going into the technical and IT fields, which are experiencing a growth in the female gender.

My favorite examples of what Sixth World hackers are like are shows like .Hack, Densha Otoko, and Megatokyo (I think ya'll have heard my argument on that one before, right?). You have to think about what iconography a person chooses says about that person. Yes, your hacker could find themselves on the wrong end of an MLP hoof in cyber-combat, because that's how that person chooses to identify themself!

I don't think my group would go anywhere without their main hacker Bug, a kid with AIPs with a penchant for flatvid game shows. He's just as effective remote as he is local.

Again, the argument isn't that it's wrong to have /d/ as a girly-girl; it's that one, she seemed to come out of nowhere, and two, there hasn't been anything to establish why FJ would give her membership. And if Cynthia or other authors get the chance to do that, I would be willing to give them the chance.

Well to be fair on the other end of the spectrum we have Sticks whose areas of expertise are: Bugs, the Mob, The Cops, Bounty Hunting, Prostitution and a few other things I'm undoubtedly forgetting to mention. You have netcat and Slamm-O both seeing entirely too much screen time. So yea there area lot of quirks about the Jackpointers that you are either going to love or you are going to hate.

I would expect to see Heckers/Technomancers who spend most of their lives online, being prominent posters/commenters. Look at here, I bet you could name 6 people off the top of your head that post all the time, especially in specific sub forums.

Sure, I am not saying women ought not to be hackers. Just that this kind of woman is unfit for a runner's life. I would be just as opposed to the dreamy-eyed, highly emotional and highly unable to cope with stress, emo kind of guy as a runner. A runner, not a hacker, who can feel totally uninvolved because she's continents away (until the hit team comes knocking at least).


Yah, and here we have to agree to disagree. I'd like them to be less on the otaku side, not more.


Definitly agree. But woth the umpteenth copy, it got lame.

That's because they're loudmouths who post a lot, even when they don't have much to say, and sometimes just make comical comments. IRL version, ME! SR earlier editions, The Laughing Man.

Epic troll.

MT maybe I'll give you. But you should read the other two. Completely not what you think they are.

Admittedly I only ever glanced them shortly. But the character list in MT includes a PS3 in the body of a sex doll, and the characters are so otaku they make Shinji Ikari look like a viable lifeform.

Yyyyyeah, you need to actually read the series I just recommended. If you think Ping is a sex-doll, then you did a really quick glance over

Deniable assets come in many shapes and sizes.

I agree with RM that /dev/grrl hasn't shown reason to be accepted onto Jackpoint. But at the same time you can't pigeon-hole every freelancer in the Sixth World as some killbot who never smiles because that would smudge his cybereyes which you can't see because he never takes off his mirrorshades and spirits forbid he ever take off his leather jacket even in bed with his hawt elf babe with the big hooters because that's the best kind of babe and... *pant pant pant*

I think it's time to take my medication now.

Ping was intended to be a date sim accessory - or a glorified sex doll. Just because she didn't doesn't mean that wasn't what she was meant for.

Hey, sex dolls can be useful. With the tinting on vehicle windows, you can duct tape one to a steering wheel and it'll look like there's someone driving something when it's really on Autopilot.

Now where did I say that? But a certain inner strength and durability should go with it as much as a certain common sense and awareness. Girly-girly my little pony types have neither of those, often. If your life taught you everybody holds the door for you and everytime there is something unpleasant some guy comes pick it up for you if you scream, you are gonna die very fast in the kind of business shadowrunning is supposed to be. Yea, that means Paris Hilton wouldn'T make a good runner either. Or, for that matter, Jacko (RIP).

*sigh*

She's a non-H model. It's spelled out explicitly several times. She will not take H-games. She barely had any subroutines for undressing in front of people for the longest time. Her purpose is to help draw otaku out of their shells and actually make them date real people.

Also, dating sims =/ h-games. This is the problem with people who hear about things only through off-hand references via Something Awful or Crackd or whatever. Dating sims are generally softcore at their worst, and usually have what "core" elements excised when they do manga / anime translations. I don't have the time to go into the differences, but yeah. Kagetenshi could explain more, or, when I get back tonight, I could dig up my old post on the differences between the two.

Glorified, RM. Glorified. Which she is, and you know it. Ping was getting into softcore actions when she was first introduced until some of the subroutines kicked in, like throwing the lot of them out of the apartment while she got ready for school.

I know very well that dating sims =/= H-games. That still doesn't change that she's an accessory for the purpose of romance.

It's not really that most don't "get it".

Most just don't care.

It all gets filed under the mental category of "Weird Japanese Stuff".



-k

There's stuff from Japan that isn't weird?