No way. Having something evil on the evil end of the spectrum doesn't make anything black and white. Besides, Horrors are only evil if you are not a horror.

in real life, you're correct. in fiction, however, the existence of any absolute generally tends to create a foil. in SR2, the Horrors appeared fairly frequently. this generated runs such as Harlequin's Back. whatever you think of HB, it's very definitely a black-and-white run.

OK, I'll give you that. But it really should be seen more as Black versus everyone else.

that's hard to do. you'd have to play it very, very subtlely--moreso than, say, the Aztechnology-blood magic connection.

The "Dunkelzahn as Saint" thing never really sat well with me, but that's also because it isn't how I read the various novels and sourcebooks surrounding his demise and the rise of the Draco Foundation. It's not inconcievable or stupid that Dunkelzahn had the best interests of the world in mind. However, he was not a saintly creature. He enaged in political and corporate espionage, spying, assassination, and other means that someone well-acquainted with how the world works understand are sometimes necessary to garner power toward a greater goal. He was not a zealot or an idealist, but went about his plans toward a beneficial goal with a rational and calculating mindset. I think that's just the sort of savior that would exist in the world of Shadowrun, and just the sort who could actually do good rather than paving a road to Hell with good intentions.

Which reminds me of the one redeeming thing in "The Forever Drug", Lofwyr's speech regarding Dunkie...

Be fair. The driftwood-sculpture technique was kinda cool too.

"mister mullet guy fighting all the ghouls"

unrelated, but NEZUMI, that's not a mullet, its a mohawk.

nuh-uh. at the front of his head, his hair's an even length from crown to temple. at the back of his head, it grows long enough to tie into a pony tail. business up front, party in the rear--yep, that's a mullet.

Wow, so many issues to cover.

I agree with who ever said that Dunky wasnt a saint. He was a hero however. He used many methods that others might consider evil, but over all his goals were pure. he sacrificed himself to save the world. Yay hero!

Furry shadowrun: YoTC, I've had mixed reactions. I hated all the partial manifestations. It was too Furry for me. What I did like were teh reflections of ED I saw. I loved Chronic Ostiocuspus, I loved the drakes. I liked how you could make Ts'crang with a mixture of the surge effects. I didnt like how you could just have partial transformations, or random cat people and not whole races of them. The kitty cat porn star made me want to kill myself.

Yay mullets!

The way I see it, kitty porn stars should be buying those modifications. Gene-art! Freaks, made-to-order!

All you bastards on this thread made me go and read all my Transmet books again. Damn you. Anyway, I noticed something! In one issue, Yelena takes a "phone trait", a bottle of pills that grows artificial tissue on her nerves and eyes and grows antenna-weave on her skeleton, basically giving her an implant phone. It's temporary, the artificial material degrades and all.

It'd be a technological leap for SR, but imagine if something like that existed in the game. Pills full of nanites which go on in and build your wired reflexes over your existing tissues. They degrade, unless you keep popping another cocktail of pills with nanites that maintain them. Having them, of course, takes a hit on your Essence, but not permenantly, and that and cyberlimb/torso/head 'ware platforms with plug-and-play components would make swapping cyber/bioware a possibility.

Anyway, crazy thoughts for the day!

Of late, perhaps due to influences of Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex, and also probably due to the Fuzzy type influence fallout from Year of the Comet, I'm rather hoping the next step is a downtime in magic.

And an increase/refinement of cyber. Less strain on the bodies, more 'human looking' type enhancements even at the higher scales of implants.

Not very original, I admit, but I suppose I've just gotten a little apathetic with the direction magic has gone since Magic in the Shadows came out years ago.

Not that I disagree with you, but what specifically has made you apathetic about the direction of magic?

If you don't like the mojo, suck it up and play CP:2020 instead. It's what I've been doing a little, recently, to get my fix of "gunbunny rules all," as a break from Shadowrun.

Apparently the latest Cyberpunk book (which is regarded by most CP fans as utter crap) has moved away from the Cyberpunk genre, too. A lot of it's supposed to feature one-shot temporary nanoware (or whatever they call it) that's, from what I gather, a lot like the radio DE just described (which was the exact mental image that popped into my head while reading about this new CP stuff).

There might be some inspiration to be found, if anyone's interested in downloading their pdf of a rules sample, or whatnot.

The trick with cyberpunk is that the name is misleading. As a literary movement, it had a certain style and attitude (especially attitude) that was common to its authors. It tended to include or place special emphasis on technology, but that's mainly because of the impetus of the time: the emergence of new tech every day. But that's nothing new, traditional science fiction does as much of the same. If you really read cyberpunk, then you know the tech was just a gimmick: the stories were about people. Try reading some of the non-sci fi material written by cyberpunk authors. You can see clearly that the style and human emphasis shines through...the common elements of high tech were in many cases a sort of backdrop or shared setting, not unlike the Cthulhu mythos back in the day.

Was the cyberpunk literature really so "cyberpunk"? I liked the cyberpunk trilogy quite much, but it already contained "slipstream" back then. Seems to me that the "cyberpunk" which SR has moved away from simply is the cyberpunk of CP2020.

Well, it's a moving scale. There are early cyberpunk works which are used as the flagpoles to define what was considered cyberpunk. But really, the more recent the books by even the same authors have been, the more they drift away from those literary elements. Which is natural; writers tend to write what they know and what they experience, and experiences change.

Well, it appears that the barriers between magic and technology are very, very slowly eroding in the SR canon. I would express surprise, however, at how slowly they are proceeding.

At one point, just after Year of the Comet came out, one of our players got the notion in his head that he, too, could launch a probe at the comet! All by his little lonesome. I laughed at the idea. Then I saw the numbers.

His plan was to take a conventionally constructed rocket and house it in a wooden 'launching frame'. He would then have a mage levitate the rocket's frame (carrying the rocket with it) to an altitude of about 65 kilometers, before the Background Count starts to increase, but well above the majority of the atmosphere. In this way, he could neglect the huge losses in power incurred by fighting atmospheric drag and put all of his power into achieving escape velocity. It would carry a one hundred kilo payload of sensors and transmission equipment to scout out Halley's comet.

According to his numbers, he could achieve this with contemporary 2004 technology, using a rocket weighing roughly 2000 kilograms he could build in his garage. He estimated that a more efficient fuel, undoubtedly devised by Ares by this point, would allow him to lower the weight to around 1000 kilograms. This was important, but not vital, as eventually the mage could hit a TN of 24 on the levitate - but a TN of 14 was much more reasonable.

Other discussions were:
'It's going to take a few hours to levitate the rocket up there. Aren't they going to shoot your rocket down when you try to launch it?'
'Improved invisibility! Invisibility to Radar! Sustaining foci! What rocket?'
'They could have a mage spot it on the astral dispell the Levitate.'
'Seriously, how many megacorps have people scouting the astral for a mage-launched rocket made in somebody's garage?'

'Why wood?'
'Because if I use a manufactured material, the object resistance goes through the roof.'
'How's wood going to support a 1000 kg rocket?'
'It's thick wood.'
'Isn't that going to weigh a lot?'
'Just another 100 kilos or so.'

It was a highly entertaining thought, even if he did later end up scrapping the idea in favor of getting an Ally spirit with his karma instead.

cyberpunk realy is a moveing target. and a damn hard one to nail down at that. its style is a question, who is less human? the ones that remove or rebuild their bodys or the leaders up top that order any kind of action without blinking, just to gain more power and money? at first all will call the people that mod their bodys. but think about it, its not so much our bodys that define us as humans, but our ability to feel. a machine dont have feelings, it just do as its told. therefor a person can be a machine without being modded at all (dark suit and sunglasses anyone?). while a person thats more or less a brain in a can can show emotions, artistic creativity and all the other stuff we point to as human.

as for the tech, its moveing more and more towards nano and bio. but still there is that problem with getting a small neural feedback chip to work. the most advanced they have right now is about the size of a cpu and tie into about 100-1000 nerves in the brain, but still it only allows simple mouse like interfaceing. there is no feedback outside of what you can see and hear. for it to become a true reality it needs to be able to send info back, like say a hand that tells you how much force your putting on a egg, not by sound or some other outside source but by you actualy feeling that egg in your hand and that the pressure is building along the surface.

allso, lately it have finaly dawned on me the abilitys opening with a patent that got filed not to long ago (i think it was microsoft that filed it) about useing the human bodys ability to transport a electric charge as a networking infrastructure. it can allow stuff like a pda/phone watch that use your skin to talk to a handfree behind your ear without the worry about other people connecting to your wireless system. and picture flash memory in the shape of rings. put it on your finger and be able to read and write the data on it. with an idea like that you dont need to put much in the body itself. in fact you only need to put one thing in there, a chip thats able to act as a bridge between your senses and the equipment. on external plugs or anything like that. pot your watch on and you see the time floating in the air and so on...