Shadowrun mixes fantasy and scifi, so someone out there has definitely made a Comm-Ent phreaker/hacker character by now.
Comm-Ents running aerials in their uppermost branches of their head but nobody can tell ‘cause they’ve made’em blend in. Paranoia’s even harder to pin down when the “trees” can literally be listenin’.
oh, uh, for those unfamiliar: Shadowrun’s a tabletop RPG as well as a computer RPG with a cyberpunk setting but with fantasy creatures and magic mixed together
bummer, an ent using comms tech despite the classic trait of’em being against exploitative civilization didn’t click as much as I thought it might
more fun imagery for me! In my head it’s a clear visual of a cross between solar and cyberpunk. Then again, I don’t remember ents in Shadowrun, but people play the TTRPG a little fast and loose like D&D, so I stand by my OP thought
I’m a huge believer in fast-and-loose. I went through a process over the years of seeking increasingly more technical realism in RPGs - from floating clouds of hit points; to damage affecting abilities; to hit locations and affects… eventually, I ended up running games in Phoenix Command. Have you ever played Phoenix Command? We once had a larger group in teams heading across a small town toward each other to fight; it took the better part of a day, and then when they did make contact, nearly everyone involved in combat was taken out in the next 20 minutes. It is a fantastically realistic, and utterly horrible game.
I still prefer a little more than “Balls of HP”, and I know modern D&D addresses this; frankly, I think Traveler nailed it. At one point I made some rules (haven’t we all?) based on the premise of The Last Action Hero: characters are Main Characters, and get a bunch of bonuses; NPCs are extras and don’t. Combat is otherwise more or less as lethal as in real life; it’s just that major characters get saves that turn most damage into superficial wounds. But by that time I had realized the rules matter less than the setting and story.
And that brings us back to Ents with comms tech! Whatever makes things interesting and fun, because it’s a game and not a chore.
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