Ok, as promised, the SLEUTH, in SR site is now up. Sorry that took a little bit there.

It's nothing fancy, but it works. Click the link below to see it.
SLEUTH

There's only one problem with it though...it's REALLY naked of it's content.
That's where everyone here comes in!

There were a vast amount of people who wanted to see this site happen so now I ask you to keep it alive.

Submit your reports of crimes against intelligence by e-mailing them to me at:
sleuth@exigine.com
Or
you can PM them to me here.


Thanks again everyone, and I hope I can do respect to Karen.
-Stumps

Sweetness. Now I can enjoy and mail in bloopers....

I *love* your wallpaper.

Are you sure that you should have it set up month by month? It creates the expectation of month by month updates which you may not actually get enough cases for.

Well...for now...I'll leave it that way.

If it turns out that there aren't enough cases for that, then I will adjust it to a more suited format, but for now...that's the ideal.

Glad you like the wallpaper...took a while to find

Just want to say that mmu1 did have a valid point. look carefully at each submission, after even a few of the ones Karen posted up were cases where I really had to ask who the clueless one was the player or the GM...

Oddly enough, the only one like that that I'm finding offhand was done by Karen herself when she ruled that a lightning bolt grounded through the person that a ganger was beating up, frying her. Assuming the bolt hit somewhere on the torso and the person wasn't wearing über-insulated boots, it'd be extremely unlikely that the path of least resistance would carry up the body, through his arms, across skin/skin contact (potentially dry skin, at that), and down through another whole body.

~J

Well, it may be a valid point to say that there are many dumb-found moments where a GM inacts what can appear as un-just damage to a group, but on the other hand, it's easy for many cases to look like the GM is being un-just because of the results...but realize, the GM's position is one in which they are to produce the reaction of the SR world to the player-character's actions.

In real life, for instance, if you saw a plane comming at you as you raced away from a mission, would you wave to it (being aware that your occupation is one of illigal activity) when you know it's piloted by an employer of your target, and further, when that same plane is seen by you heading your way and launching a missle off of it's wing...would you give the pilot a thumb-up sign?

I think many-a-shadowrunner might have been looking for a nice dark alley to ditch into somewhere along that exchange; if at no other point than when the missle is launched.


I am aware that it is easy to just get the giggles off of a so called "cruel" or "dumb" GMing job...but besides my proof-reading has anyone thought of the reverse angle?
Many cases are submitted as groups doing something dumb.
But what about a player submitting the blooper of a GM??

I'm not looking for just the groups of player-character's who have follied...I'm looking for ANY flop.
GM's do plenty in that manner...they just usually have a way of crawling out of their mistake thanks to their position.

Btw, I've received 1 submission.
Thank you guys, let's keep them comming.
(note that that's 1 submission....not 1 update. I'm not updating untill I get 3 or 5 good laughs collected and updated all at once.)

OK, I emailed you a story.

My address is o i s h i _ k u r a n o s u k e


at







hotmail







In case it gets caught by the spam filter or somesuch. I guess I'll PM it too.

It's generally better to just scraMAeijajuentaqpasrPSmble your email address rather than doing funky things with spacing.

~J

Alas, I am humbled. My kungfu is weak.


That's a good idea. I'll try it next time.

I got your submission...it's funny stuff! Thanks.

Glad you like it.

I must say, I am pretty impressed. It seems like every few weeks someone mentions resurrecting the clue files and that is the end of it. In one day you have already put up a very nice looking site and got the word out. My hat is off to you, sir. Unfortunately I don't have any submissions because of course, I never make stupid mistakes...

Thanks.

But really, compared to other sites I've put together...this one is EASY.
It's only HTML basic with a little CSS and no user interface.

I'm actually thinking of trying to work in a user rating system so everyone can vote the humor of the case files they read...but for now, I'm sticking with simplicity.

The submissions are comming in pretty regularly, Thank you everyone. I hope it keeps up.

Okay my prime example was casefile #4 where Karen ruled that the clues ran out with the kick... IMHO the clues ran out with the shooting the johnson, even then though it was recoverable (loot for credstick or dna sample to determine SIN, trace back to employer and procees with interrogation and retribution.) but the page seems to suggest that being clueless meant not following the GM's plotline.

Ok, look...

I'm not going to be doing this like Karen. She doesn't want anyone to, so out of respect I'm not going to.

I am not Karen. This is not the CLUE files.
I am Stumps. This is the SLEUTH files.

While they have the same intent, I'm telling you I'm doing it differently.

First, the entire case will be opened with a monologue (that many writers start off with in their submissions anyway) that has a consistant tone to the style of Friday from Dragnet and the narator from The Twilight Zone.

Second, I'm not going to have it posted with any comments from OOC perspectives of myself, the GM, or the players. Instead, the only OOC perspective will be that of the narator's tone.
Any funny info that is entirely OOC, like a player who IR tackled another player, will be after the story as Extra Info (like a behind the scenes concept).

Third, the case itself will be mostly told just like a novel from SR.
The only difference here is...it's funny!

With this format, I've completely removed any concepts of "GM's being asses" debates because you won't be able to tell if the GM was being an ass or if the players were just plain stupid. The reason why you won't be able to tell is that all you will be reading is that the Characters screwed up or were placed in an incredibly screwed up situation.
No matter which of these former two possibilities is the case, both are funny.

And that's about all.
So no. I'm not going to be singling players and GM's out and pointing fingers at them and saying things like, "MAN! players can be SO stupid!" or "Gm's are incredible at being COMPLETE asses somtimes!"
I'm sure most of us already are aware of these two possibilites in gaming...I don't need to point them out to you, nor do I care to waist my time doing so.

Furthermore...I am not GMing (as Karen appeared to be doing when she was writing the CLUE files), so I won't have a natural tendency to be frustrated with players (as GM's quite naturally do) and find any GREAT humor in GM on player humor.

I beg of you...please refrain from arguing over the fairness of something that hasn't even been written for you to shread up yet.
At least let me make my pile of crap before you tell me that it is such.

No one's trying to say that SLEUTH will have any of the same shortcomings, Stumps, and I applaud your method of presentation.

That said, I have to agree that some of the stories posted made me feel the GM had less of a clue than the players. For instance, in Case #3, the players were doing an extraction. They were in the sewers all geared up, when they realizer they didn't have flashlights.

Now, would that happen in real life? No. The second you went down into that sewer, you would say "Hey, I can't see. I need a flashlight." The fact is, they didn't know that they couldn't see anything until it was too late. Maybe they didn't write it down, but I mean, come on!

Really, messing up a run for crap like that really makes the game no fun to play.

Well, I'll say this much.
I figure that would have been a TN 1 Intelligence roll check for my players if I was GMing. And I would have just told them to roll Intelligence, and not waited.

GM's hate me if they like sticking players in nasty things like that though.
I do things like grab my pocket secretary and turn the illumination up.
Whip out my watch and press the indiglo button.
Pull out my lighter and light it.
Tear off the lid to my pack of smokes and light it on fire and drop it down there.
And better than anything else that many of my merc characters never leave without...crack a chem light.

Indeed. It's like specifying that I ran out of fuel because I never clearly stated I was refueling over the course of the month, or that my bladder explodes and I die because I never state that my character goes to the bathroom, or that I go out on the street naked because I said "I'm not taking anything with me".

~J

Well, considering the huge change in TN mods from going to minimal light to pocket flashlight

Depending on how "pocket" that pocket flashlight is, it may very well be Minimal Light.

~J

Considering what a modern LED keychain light can do, not really.

I agree. There were a few of those where I was questioning the GM, not the players.

Stumps congrats on the style you chose (the behind the scenes should show where the sillyness is) I like the style design and please do not mistake my dissatisfaction with roughly 12.5% of Karen's stuff with a dislike of your stuff, to prove my point on this I will have a submission up to you in a week or so (have to write the bastard up) I have plenty

I have a small blue one that provides a wide arc of lighting. I've only used it for recognizing furniture when I don't want to turn on the room lighting, so I only know it has a range of at least 6 meters and can easily fill half a room with an eary blue glow.

Now, I don't know how bright a 2060s pocsec is, but when I'm using my laptop for illumination I rarely get more than a meter of useful illumination. For an LED flashlight, I suppose Partial might be a better category.

~J

depends on the design, some have hoods to limit exposure to either immediate side, but out to about 20 feet I get a strong circle of light that's about 8ft in diameter. It's not great, but it's better than total darkness. (and it's handy for discreetly signalling your friends when they enter a dark movie theatre and can't find thier seats.)

I did have a cheap one that lit up basically to 10 ft in front of me and I could almost read comfortably with. I also have a 2 AA maglite that is just great for small tactiacal light purposes. They should offer lights in a rating setup rtg one would be a keychain LED where a rating 8 would be a hand-held 1.5 million CP flood-lamp that negates all darkness mods and imposes glare on those looking at it.

I can see the write up
Flashlight price 10*Rating (Max weight .1 Kg*Rating^2 (reduces lighting penalties for darkness on a 1 for 1 bases until negated)

I wrote up house rules for halogen tactical illuminators.

If you always have one on your gun, then you'll never be without a bright light when you need it.

I wasn't implying that there was a canon ruling, just that I personally didn't know. I'll still be surprised if it ends up much brighter than a modern laptop screen.

~J

It was a joke really...cause they call it a pocket secretary and define it as being as big as one of the rifles or shotguns (forget which one).
If they have that kind of association with the PS, then "bright" might mean "Cape Hateris Light House" or it could mean "1980's digital watch light".

No, they just define it as that concealable. "Is that a pocket secretary, or is your recent transplant from a Troll happy to see me?"

~J

yes well...if it's as concealable as a rifle, but it's a pocket sized item...then I'm either:
A) going to start carrying my rifles in my pocket
or
B) get a shoulder strap for my PS

You do know that the p-sec's concealability has been fixed in the errata, don't you?

Yeah in the errata the conceal rating is now 8 for pocsecs. Much better - but my runners didn't have as much problem with that as with the weight of 1, which was not changed in the errata. Gah, 1 is pretty hefty for something that supposedly goes in a pocket.

Just divide the weight by 2 (or even 4), which is what a lot of people do for the Ammo weights as well. There are quite a few cases in Shadowrun where it seems that imperial pounds were interchanged with metric kilograms.

My problem with the flashlight run was parking the dumptruck over the manhole afterwards. I understand where the GM was coming from since they had been left off the list, but I would have given the players a chance to rectify it (crap! hold my sack of suspicious sneaking stuff, I'm going to run into that hardware store and get a flashlight!), instead of the seeming "ha ha, not only did you ruin the run, but now you're stuck in the sewers."

My favorite CLUE had the murderous merc getting apprehended by the unarmed dockmaster and his nephew (IIRC, the school filter blocks CLUE, oddly enough). Just FYI.

I'd allow decent illumination from a LED light, based on my own experience. I was in an Astronomy class, and the only illumination allowed while out for class at night were red LED lights, because anything else ruined your night vision.

SLEUTH > Bad CLUE files > GM's Picking on players > Story Format > Lighting alternatives > Pocket Secretaries > Edition Errata > Problem & Solution with Errata > Lighting > Outline of topics thus far...

I love dumpshock.

Hey, as long as it keeps the topic at the top...

Here is a quick summary of the tactical illuminator rules I wrote up:

In game terms, a tactical illuminator allows a player to avoid taking TN penalties for poor visibility resulting from darkness in exactly the same way that carrying a flashlight would. However, rather than taking up one of his hands as a flashlight would, the tactical illuminator allows him to keep his favorite gun at the ready the whole time. Unlike the Flashlight accessory given in the Cannon Companion, since the Tactical Illuminator is a focused halogen beam, it has a range of 25 meters instead of 20 meters.

The light itself (and the laser sight, if you have one) may be turned on and off by using switches on the unit itself. This is a Simple Action, just like changing your gun mode. This cannot be done by Smartlink since there are no smartlinked tactical illuminators on the market. After all, no one who uses a Smartlink uses laser sights, and no company wants to risk investing in something like smartlinked tactical illuminators that there is a very limited and specific market. After all, if you’re a crazy street sammie with a Smartlink or Smartlink-2, then you probably have cybereyes with thermovision or low light vision, and a gigantic magnification scope. It’s unlikely that you’re going to want to buy an old fashioned tactical illuminator.

In-game stats:
Tactical Illuminator Mount: Under
Weight: .25
Avail: 3/24 hrs
Cost: 150 nuyen
Street Index: 1

The tactical illuminator with the LAM is exactly the same except it costs 650 nuyen.

Skills:
(B/R)Electronics
Acedimic Knowledge:
----->Engineering

That should give you an SL that can turn on a flashlight.

did you mean "can't"??

I always felt the Induction pad was basically identical in function to the datajack, and could easily see it being used as a port connector on a datajack port equipped vehicle.

I'm pretty sure it never says you can.