As the new era commences, we face difficult challenges as a nation. No wait...let me start over. When this story arc gets put together, we'll be moving slightly (slightly) away from the pure sandbox of the Wild West and into a semi-canonical environment. Don't get me wrong. You guys are still going to be doing...pretty much everything. But we on staff want to ensure the enjoyment of all within the framework we can affect.

Which brings me to the issue at hand. Several players have expressed a desire to wholesale convert their Old Seattle PCs to SR4 per the Official Conversion Guide. This is obviously something that can be done with current tools, but do we want to?

Set aside that the old end plot (which nobody saw finished IC due to lack of player activity) was intended to kill everyone. Are these karma monsters really going to fit in, or will they be disruptive? Should we allow people to remake PCs, but encourage them to do it within the confines of the regular CG rules? Should we instaban anyone who expresses the desire to bring back anything from "The Dark Times"?

What say you, citizens of New Seattle?

I'm not sure it's a good idea - it just plain seems like a more level playing field now, with everybody playing 400-point characters and advancing from there. I don't think bringing over (say) a character with 200 karma (or more!) is a good idea.

I'd say that they should be allowed to come back at full karma, but if and only if:

a)  They stay out of lower powered plottage;

b)  Staff (or someone) is willing to run some high power stuff that they can be involved in; and

c)  We agree that anyone else who wants to can make their own epic level character to participate in high level stuff as well.

I think there's no question that there is a place in Shadowrun for canon-level epic karma monsters.  It's also true that playing at such high levels can quite possibly be a lot of fun.  There's no problem with making a two-tiered system of lower power and higher power characters, just as long as everyone can join whichever tier they want on an equal basis.  I know lots of people don't like the uber epic level, and some people would rather play the same character forever and reach that level naturally, but I for one would have a blast making a 200+ karma character and seeing how I could blend power and theme into something that's fun and engaging.

Now, if we don't agree that everyone should be able to join the ranks of the epic if they want to, then bringing over monsters from the days of yore shouldn't be allowed.  I do agree with Penta that a level playing field is important.  The thing is, we don't have to ban old characters just to keep the playing field level, we just have to ensure that everyone gets to participate on an equal basis in whatever power content is being run.

Oh, and also, high powered characters need to play nice.  They can't go around looking for an excuse to PK.  Otherwise they definitely will not be welcome.

Tear, I'm confused. Are you talking about voiding the 400bp rule for all? Or allowing conversions? Or both?

You guys can do what you want, but think very carefully about the game you are building.

Which is why I'm deadset against the idea of conversions (or tweaking the 400 bp barrier)

A reset is a reset is a reset. Allowing exceptions to that rule will just create problems.

I think he's saying if you allow old players to convert their PCs from the old days, then to make the game 'fair' you should allow new people to make chars above the 400bp rule - so yes, making that 400bp rule more of an optional thing rather then a hard line in the sand.

I can see both sides here, I do remember the karma monsters that were untouchable in the old days and how they could dominate a scene and just do whatever the heck they liked. But on the other hand, I have my own PC who was by no means a Karma monster but I had invested time to initiate and grow him some that is gone - I have to imagine that the karma monsters feel the same about their 'investment' that it'd be nice to bring them back...

As much as I'd like to bring the spaniard back, I honestly think it's better to keep with the reset, rather the opening the door to chars that unbalance things.

Now.. on a related note, perhaps it'd be a good idea to have some way of seeing what your current BP level - it could be used as a tool to help GMs.

e.g... I'm running a plot for PCs levels 400-600bp
That way, as the game grows and you invariably get new Karma Monsters, you have a way of identifying PCs that fit into the scale of your run/tp.

Alternatively, if you do decide to allow conversions, I'd say give them an 'Enemy' flaw out the door, designed to be a potential Staff NPC to keep the monster in line or suitably occupied when needed.

I'm not sure that BP directly correlates to karma.

And meanwhile...An enemy flaw would presume that we have enough staff to keep tabs on the karma monsters.

Both or neither.  If people can resurrect karma monsters from Old Seattle, then everyone has to be free to make PCs of the same level.  That way we aren't creating a two tiered game where certain people rule all just because they've been around longer.  That will defeat the purpose of a reset.  It would not defeat the purpose, however, if everyone was allowed to play with uber characters.  It might even serve the purpose of a pre-beta game, letting us find out what things are like in the upper echelons.

However, if we don't agree that people can create high powered characters as they wish, then it should not be allowed to import high powered characters from Old Seattle.  Starting them over with 400bp is fine of course, nobody should have a problem with that.  But they can't bring their old karma over unless we agree that everyone can play around with high power characters too.

That said, if we do agree to allow high powered characters, I would suggest that no more than one of someone's three alts should be used for that purpose.  We still want to see characters progress from 400bp up, so we have a good feel for the system and the speed of advancement.  But it might be fun to play ultra powerful characters just to see what it's like without needing to wait 5 years to do it naturally.

My personal opinion is that you're asking for trouble. We've spent the last five years laboring to get away from Old Seattle...and now you want to open the door to all of that grief again?

The agreement we were left with by the last director made more sense to me:

1. People could recreate their old PC as a starting character using the same 400 bp other starting PCs get.
2. The new game comprised an alternate timeline; thus the personal stories of Old Seattle PCs would not be carried on into the new game.

I think these are good guidelines and I would encourage the playerbase to adopt them.

[Edited for spelling because I'm on my freaking iPod.]  

As I have instinctively.

...Seriously, let's not go pecking at first principles.

Well, I didn't really consider the history of Old Seattle, mostly because I know almost nothing about it.  If there's drama and/or possible cheating in the past with those old characters, then by all means, let's not let them back in.

I expressed my desire to convert my SR3 character to SR4 due to never having my end of game plot finished. It is not my fault that staff was called away for RL obligations. Since I cannot have a staff run conclusion and ending, I might as well make my own here. Wasn't there an earlier thread about using our PC as alts and npcs? Which means we would have to convert them anyway.

I'm more than willing to work out a mini history for the +time difference between the old grid and the new grid. All I ask is that staff give me somekind of outline to work with.

Old Seattle said go run PrPs, go barRP, etc... Here you say do as you want it's your game, what is the difference?

I think Waffle stated in the first post here the planned ultimate end for the old game: everybody died.

Then reopen the old grid and run the plot.

I would disagree with any sort of conversion for the reasons listed above. New Seattle was supposed to be something of a reset between old Seattle. As much as I'd like tons of karma to recreate my character, it just wouldn't, A) Be really... fair, and B) be within the constraints that were established at the beginning of NS.

Now, I'm all for being able to recreate characters from Old Seattle as starting characters, and even being able to staple a few old story points together, but purely as a piece of background. Old relationships would only be honored in so far as those other PCs allow, if they even play the game at all. So, basically, I can recreate a character with the 400 BP cap, maybe even keep a few stories from plots or PrPs that were run, but, I shouldn't be mentioning any PCs specifically, or even assuming that other PCs exist from Old Seattle, unless a specific agreement has been made.

Simply, we should really just ignore the fact that Old Seattle existed, in terms of canon. If I want to make a charBG with some events or whatever in it, that should be fine, but only because it should be like a fresh character, mostly.

I might like to see some sort of karma bonus (not so much rollover, since its crazy Alpha, of people who participated in Alpha (Maybe 10 or 20 karma. Or an edge point, or 5 BP or something.) But, even that could be ill-advised.

Not that its important now, but when we /start/ doing canonical things, it could be useful to know the history of Seattle, so that at least we can make our BGs, new or old, mesh with the new world.

Also, everyone dies? You sneaky bastards.