I doubt they meant to kill off the whole country's connection. However, if you do a block of a swath of IPs to enforce a ban, and it turns out that the entire IP segment for a nation (or a big chunk of the nation)...

Glad they got things sorted out, in the end.

Aha, but I think that that's slightly different. When Shadowrun was originally written the widespread existence megacorporations which are always rich, mysterious, evil, and asiatic were an almost axiomatic component of 1980s popular culture anxieties and fears. Remove that and you tear half the heart out of the 80s.

However, having a flawless alignment detecting machine, while it *promotes* a certain setting, isn't axiomatic to the romantic fantasy setting (at least as far as I can tell). So, I could see someone objecting to it on the grounds that it limits potential storylines or campaign focuses on the politics of Aldis. It would be hard to have a long running series of games dealing with internal politics, dramatic backroom manipulation, and so on and so forth if every single politician has been flawlessly background-checked.

In other words, I think the magic deer is less key to the setting than megacorporations would be for late 80s sci fi, and yet more of a heavy handed setting device. After all, no one would say of Shadowrun, "Renraku's CEO has a magic background check that is so flawless that there will never be any Renraku staff who might care more about themselves than the corporation." So, I can see why someone might find the flawless deer somewhat constraining and objectionable.

I probably was corrupted by hanging out too much at bullshido.net.

Funny. My initial thoughts of corps in the 80s are the Lockheed and Chrysler bailouts, the S&L bailouts, junk bonds, the takeover of RJR Nabisco, and the proliferation of Japanese tech companies in California.

It's not like corporations were taking over the world in the 80s (the 90s, sure). It was a leitmotif of one crappy genre.

Well, my point was that Nisarg overemphasized the importance of the "magic deer" because it gave him a convenient point to attack the setting as a whole. The deer itself may not be as genre-specific as corps are to cyberpunk, but the ability to provide a good and honest ruling system is pretty important to romantic fantasy. The deer is just one way of doing that.

Nisarg didn't see it that way. To him, the deer embodied all that is BadWrongFun (as they say on RPG.net), and anyone who disagreed was obviously an idiot. That's what really got people's goat... it wasn't that he simply disliked the setting. He attacked anyone who liked the setting, as he saw the setting emphasized a form of society he hates. The deer was just a starting point for one of his usual rants.

Basically, anyone who disagrees with him is a target of vitriol. He has no other MO. And romantic fantasy portrays a set of social values and ideas that are apparently antithetical to him. Since Blue Rose attempts to emulate those ideas in its setting, it got his full attention. Moreso than his previous rantings on RPG.net did.

I don't think anyone had a real problem with his objection to the deer. Hell, people on the BR boards have problems with other parts of the setting, but they at least discuss them politely and come up with alternative setting ideas or campaign ideas. To Nisarg, nothing would have satisfied him but completely excising all the romantic fantasy elements from the game... which kinda kills the whole point for Blue Rose, y'know? That's more or less what I meant with the comparison of taking megacorps out of Shadowrun. It can be done, if you want, but it's silly to attack the folks on DumpShock who like the dystopian cyberpunk genre that SR is a part of.

On the flip side, the True20 system that Blue Rose uses is a beautiful, beautiful thing. It really turns the d20 rules into a fast, easy to learn ruleset that plays well with any "cinematic" form of setting you want. A lot of people have asked Green Ronin to provide a generic True20 rulebook, or at least a new game with a more traditional setting. It's just that none of those people were quite as... single-mindedly rude as Nisarg. I really think his vehemence about it may have hurt the idea of getting a separate T20 book, for the near-future at least.

{Edit} ... wow, that was long winded. Sorry.

"Coming up on ESPN, it's the battle of the century! They're big, they're bad, they're the... MEGA-CORPS! And who would be foolish enough to challenge these juggernoughts of capitalism? It's lean, mean, and has a whole kingdom on its side! It's the MA-GIC DE-ER! Stay tuned folks because they're going to fight fight fight!"

MEGACORPS VS. MAGIC DEER: A BATTLE TO THE FINISH

I understand that for some people here English is not their first language. For everyone else (and for those in category 1 who've taken the time to become proficient), words have specific meanings and implied meanings for a reason. Word choice matters, doubly so when it's the only method of communication available (well, we do have smilies, but they're limited in range). I've been called on poor word choice before and with good reason—if it's not what you mean, don't complain when someone corrects you on it.

But I'm sure you're going to say that I'm just proving your point or something.

~J

Ah sweet memories ... one of the series that I would have loved to see continue WAY longer ... ~sorry for being OT there~

Me too.

Hmm, yeah. I blame the beer I was drinking.

But that's the whole thing. The US corporations were doing bad and all the Midwestern auto workers were paranoid that the Japanese corporations were going to go and buy out the whole US. I remember seeing a *lot* of movies from the 80s that essentially opererated on the following key points: 1.) Inscruitable asiatic Japanese have a long term view of the world that us dumbass Westerners cannot comprehend, so they still consider themselves to be engaged in World War II but have shifted gears to economic conquest, and 2.) They buy us all out using eville unfair economics, ohnoes!

OK, I see your point.

I read the Blue Rose quickstart rules out of curiosity, but I didn't actually like the rules as they were presented. It seems to me that Blue Rose takes D20, but then removes the one thing that D20 has had in development for like 30 years; the combat engine. It gets rid of all the complexity and shtick from this long-in-the-making combat system, thus getting rid of the one thing that D20 has essentially specialized in for longer than I've been alive. Then it proceeds to use D20 mechanics to handle all the oh-so-important social actions which is precisely what D20 is clunky and bad at (i.e. most things boiling down to a Diplomacy or Sense Motive check).

It also seems that they hacked away all the previously developed character creation options and basically left you with three choices: Magic-user, Fighter, or Rogue. Except they gave them different names in an apparent effort to distance themselves from D&D, even though the character classes are very much just Magic-user, Fighter, or Rogue. So, once again, we see all the stuff that D20 actually did develop in detail being ripped away, and what's left is the stuff that wasn't really well handled by D20.

That rocks.

You must have failed every English literature class you've ever taken, if that's how you view the dissection and examination of text. When someone writes something in order to present a particular point you're generally supposed to, you know, pay careful attention to what they say and analyze it. Not just accept it because it was written down, or something.

Word choice is important. Pick the wrong word and you convey the wrong meaning. No professional author carelessly uses words; each word is chosen.

Yep. Money in the bank and all that. i get paid to sit on my behind and talk on DSF, oh what a job. Now if I could figure outthe whole 'women' thing.

I'll see if I can make it—there's a vote going on that day in the Union of Snarky Posters, and then there's a recruitment social over at the National Association of Pedants, but I might be able to drop by.

~J

You are just realizing this? Seriously, just now?

Always saying the opposite of what they mean?

I have a lot of Japanese relatives, including my dad. I haven't seen my dad gearing up for World War II when he goes to work.

< Bugs Bunny > "Oh well. One man's meat is another man's poison, I always say." < /Bugs Bunny >

Basically, T20 takes the old wargaming core out of d20 and offers up a more flexible character creation systems (three feats at first level, one new feat every new level, helluva lot more skill options). I agree that it puts a bit more emphasis on social skills than absolutely necessary, but it does make combat a lot easier and more cinematic than standard d20.

Can see how that would be a downside, though.