Since MGT is considerably less detailed in the "overt mechanics" department, and the OTU already has a four-armed race in the Virushi (who do date back to CT, by the way), the handling (ha ha) of the Sydites is mostly Referee-driven.
Gypsy,
The Virushi do have four arms. They also have four legs, making them octopeds.
I either forgot or was unaware of the strong pair/delicate pair differentiation in Sydite anatomy. The few illos of them I've seen don't show much difference between the pairings however.
IMHO, the pairings lessen my already low opinion of the Sydites. Where once I only believed they were
still yet another Human Minor Race of honorable savage warriors complete with the usual negative INT and SOC modifiers, I now know they're little more than still yet another Human Minor Race of honorable savage warriors complete with the usual negative INT and SOC modifiers
masquerading as Moties. (Yes, yes. I know the Moties had only one strong arm. My comparison still stands.)
The faults with the Sydites design does not lie with
T20's authors however. The fault lies with RPG referees and players instead. You see, in any RPG every sentient species - no matter how outre the species may be- every sentient species must be available for play. That is, players demand a chargen for every Tom, Drow, or Lich. The question of whether such a species should ever be used as a PC or whether such a species can ever be used as a PC does not matter. RPG players want to be able to be a Virushi, a Sydite, a Hiver, or anything else if they so choose.
The need to make any sentient species "player ready" ties the writer's hands. The Sydites should have a neural architecture greatly different from any other human subspecies, if only to control four arms at once, and such differences should result in very different behavior. Sadly, because the Sydites had to be "player ready", the writers could not fully explore that possibility.
Instead of being a very different human variety - both
mentally and
physically - from all the other human varieties, the Sydites simply become
"Bob the Four-Armed Guy from Accounting". When you factor in their negative INT and SOC modifiers it get even sadder.
Now they're "Just Another Orc/Klingon from Accounting" too.
The same fate occurred with
T20's Ursa. When you consider how pre-sentient bears procreate,
T20's uplifted bears should have had markedly different families and societies than the human "norm". Instead, because the Ursa must be "player ready", the Ursa are nothing more than
"Bob the Bear from Accounting".
Regards,
Bill
