Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => The Secret History => Topic started by: sidslick on <06-07-12/1913:43>
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Hi all,
What's the latest with Ghostwalker? Last solid data I had he was in charge of Denver, but I've also heard rumours that he's nipped back through the Watergate Rift and disappeared, leaving chaos in Denver.
What's going on?
Sid
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Ghostwalker is definitely still in charge of Denver. However, about the time the artifacts craze started up, people began whispering that he was distracted by something. Which caused the push for renegotiating the Treaty of Denver.
Ghostwalker did indeed manipulate events and people so that four of the big artifacts (the ones mentioned in the Artifacts campaign) were brought together at the Watergate Rift. To tell you what kind of pull he used, not only was the Watergate bunker empty on that night, but he roped in Hestaby, Harlequin, Ehran the Scribe, Lugh Surehand, Aina, and Prince Reed, IIRC. He used the artifacts to open the rift, and flew through, shutting the door behind him. No one heard from him for a while after.
Word is that he's back from his little jaunt to the metaplanes, so I'd look for more info to come in Clutch of Dragons.
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Ooooof, he's pulled some serious weight in there.
Fabulous answer Mirikon - thanks muchly, mate.
Sid
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The thing that worries me...
What came back with him?
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The thing that worries me...
What came back with him?
CanRay came back with him, obviously.
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The thing that worries me...
What came back with him?
CanRay came back with him, obviously.
Very concerning that. First time Master Shedim, second time Canray... a very concerning trend... ;)
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CanRay came back with him, obviously.
No, I showed up a bit earlier.Very concerning that. First time Master Shedim, second time Canray... a very concerning trend... ;)
What, you want me to add myself into the books like Bull did? ;D
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Very concerning that. First time Master Shedim, second time Canray... a very concerning trend... ;)
Cthulu is the next logical step. Or Rush Limbaughs ghost.
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Very concerning that. First time Master Shedim, second time Canray... a very concerning trend... ;)
Cthulu is the next logical step. Or Rush Limbaughs ghost.
There's a difference?
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I really need to read those books..... The Artifacts missions.
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I'd look for more info to come in Clutch of Dragons.
That would be a safe expectation.
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Also, there was this blurb in Hazard Pay:
Nicholas Whitebird issues statement on Ghostwalker: “His status is as it has always been: in charge of Denver.”
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"as it has always been" referes to state even before awakening. Ghostwalker is eternal lord of that land...at least he considers himself to be.
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And who's going to argue with him?
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The cyberzombie housing Dunkelzahn's ghost?
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Wich could be the reason he goes back in the netherworld in the first place ? perhaps he want to bring back Big "D" or have a little chat with him.
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"as it has always been" referes to state even before awakening. Ghostwalker is eternal lord of that land...at least he considers himself to be.
Who is to say he hasn't been behind the scenes at all times from the Astral Plane during the Fifth Age?And who's going to argue with him?
Stupid people that would be soon to be better known as "Lunch".The cyberzombie housing Dunkelzahn's ghost?
Too easy.Wich could be the reason he goes back in the netherworld in the first place ? perhaps he want to bring back Big "D" or have a little chat with him.
It's harder and harder for families to get together.
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And who's going to argue with him?
Some badass motherfucker we never heard of before?
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And who's going to argue with him?
Some badass motherfucker we never heard of before?
Shedim-Possessed Samuel L. Jackson?
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And who's going to argue with him?
Some badass motherfucker we never heard of before?
Shedim-Possessed Samuel L. Jackson?
Reciting Ghostwalker Ezekiel 25:17
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I fear. And I'm not ashamed of it.
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And then Ghostwalker calmly does Clint Eastwood, "Do you feel lucky? Well do ya, punk?" before blasting him out of existence. Because even a master shedim is no match for the great dragon with the most knowledge of spirits, who has been off hunting in the metaplanes for a few thousand years.
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And then Ghostwalker calmly does Clint Eastwood, "Do you feel lucky? Well do ya, punk?" before blasting him out of existence. Because even a master shedim is no match for the great dragon with the most knowledge of spirits, who has been off hunting in the metaplanes for a few thousand years.
Clint Eastwood. Now there's a question...
Wouldn't Death be too scared of an Awakened Clint Eastwood to try and take him?
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Is there any need for him to be awakened for this to be the case?
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Is there any need for him to be awakened for this to be the case?
Not really, but Clint Eastwood being a Physical Adept seems to interest me for some reason. ;D
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And then Ghostwalker calmly does Clint Eastwood, "Do you feel lucky? Well do ya, punk?" before blasting him out of existence. Because even a master shedim is no match for the great dragon with the most knowledge of spirits, who has been off hunting in the metaplanes for a few thousand years.
Clint Eastwood. Now there's a question...
Wouldn't Death be too scared of an Awakened Clint Eastwood to try and take him?
He would be kicking Death's ass like in the MAX Destroyer mini where he would die and literally beat up five Grim Reapers to return to life.
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Is there any need for him to be awakened for this to be the case?
Not really, but Clint Eastwood being a Physical Adept seems to interest me for some reason. ;D
clint is the dady of all the gun adept 8)
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Is there any need for him to be awakened for this to be the case?
Not really, but Clint Eastwood being a Physical Adept seems to interest me for some reason. ;D
clint is the dady of all the gun adept 8)
You'd think Chow Yun-Fat was from all the two-pistol wielding gun-fu artists that are around.
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he just took what clint showed him and put a martial art look on it becauss clint is so much beter then he is ::)
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Clint is more accurate. The HK guys try to compensate with volume.
Way back during the buildup to Secret Invasion I ended up correcting/improving someone else's comparison of Nick Fury to Eastwood. The way I put it was something like, "He's not going to do anything for three hours, and then he'll kill everyone in the last ten minutes."
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That's why I like MAX Nick Fury. He does something for those three hours.
Hookers. :P
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CanRay came back with him, obviously.
No, I showed up a bit earlier.Very concerning that. First time Master Shedim, second time Canray... a very concerning trend... ;)
What, you want me to add myself into the books like Bull did? ;D
I thought someone else added Bull into canon. Also, I'd love to see a CanRay Jackpointer. There aren't enough self-depreciating smart-asses on Jackpoint. Of course, I'm the sicko that wants dragons to start yammering in the fluff of the sourcebooks again.
Seriously, in the previous editions, I was disappointed if Unkle Dunkie didn't get a word or fifty in a sourcebook.
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I agree. Some of the most memorable parts of the old books was having Big "D", Laughing Man, Orange Queen, Wordsmyth, and the others chatting and dropping hints that the world was more complicated than people really believed.
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I thought someone else added Bull into canon. Also, I'd love to see a CanRay Jackpointer. There aren't enough self-depreciating smart-asses on Jackpoint. Of course, I'm the sicko that wants dragons to start yammering in the fluff of the sourcebooks again.
Someone else did add Bull into Canon. I'm just poking the Bull for fun. It's the extreme sport of Freelancers. ;D
You won't see CanRay listed on the JackPoint. I can tell you that. I can work through the characters already there.
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Heck, Slamm-O! is close enough to count. :)
Patrick Goodman, James Miers, and Bull all got added into canon LONG before being part of theompany. Some won contests, others were just long time chatters from Usenet, before the 'real' Internet was around, or knew the writers from the convention scene and got a small nod as a thank you.
So, not author-insertions. (Andmost are now dead. D'oh! So much for immortality!)
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I'm still saying "Show me the body" for !Shadowrun Patrick Goodman.
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What, you want to look at dead bodies now?
Ewwww! Next you'll wanna poke 'em with a stick!
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What, you want to look at dead bodies now?
Ewwww! Next you'll wanna poke 'em with a stick!
Examine them for signs of being a flash-cloned body, actually. Faking a death has gotten easier in some ways... And with the right warning and resources, which the owner of a firearms company would have, he could have done just that.
Don't forget that people are going after certain folks who won the "Dragon Lotto" that is Dunkie's Will!
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I thought someone else added Bull into canon. Also, I'd love to see a CanRay Jackpointer. There aren't enough self-depreciating smart-asses on Jackpoint. Of course, I'm the sicko that wants dragons to start yammering in the fluff of the sourcebooks again.
Someone else did add Bull into Canon. I'm just poking the Bull for fun. It's the extreme sport of Freelancers. ;D
You won't see CanRay listed on the JackPoint. I can tell you that. I can work through the characters already there.
Aww, and I wanted to see how the canon Fastjack would react to your antics. :'(
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I'm still saying "Show me the body" for !Shadowrun Patrick Goodman.
SOTA64. There was, in fact, a body discovered.
Examine them for signs of being a flash-cloned body, actually. Faking a death has gotten easier in some ways... And with the right warning and resources, which the owner of a firearms company would have, he could have done just that.
Resources he had. Inclination and time...not so much.
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I see the end of Artifacts Unbound as an excellent opportunity to get rid of Ghostwalker for good. Just say he doesn't come back from that rift. Never did like the guy much, as he seems to fit the classical definition of a Mary Sue. He's this invincible character that suddenly arrives, has everyone's attention, and is somehow better than the existing heavy hitters at everything they can do. The person who created him is on record as saying he has to hold himself back when talking about Ghostwalker or he'll end up gushing about him endlessly, so that's the last nail in the Mary Sue coffin :).
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Hear Hear :-\
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The person who created him is on record as saying he has to hold himself back when talking about Ghostwalker or he'll end up gushing about him endlessly, so that's the last nail in the Mary Sue coffin :).
The person who created Ghostwalker hasn't written for Shadowrun for a very, very long time. Care to provide a source for your assertion?
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Except the classical definition of a Mary Sue is that the Mary Sue is a major protagonist in the story. Ghostwalker comes in, puts the smack down on people, and then sits back and rules Denver. Other than that, you hadn't really heard much from him for a solid decade before the Artifacts business started up, besides a couple imperial decrees or 'suggestions' about getting the PCC to up the protection on the Denver Data Haven to keep people from grabbing the technomancers there, or letting the smugglers know that while he didn't mind Tempo going through his city, if it ended up in his city, he would be annoyed.
Think about it. Since the Year of the Comet, what has Ghostwalker been a major player in that wouldn't be expected of the kind of role a great dragon would have? Hell, if you want a dragon who's always messing around in other people's affairs, you're better off looking at Lofwyr or Hestaby.
And Icewing has always been a badass. Even back in the Earthdawn days, he was regarded as one of the most powerful great dragons, having the greatest knowledge of spirits and such. He was one of the primary creators of the first Drakes, which is how he got the name Doll-Maker. About the only great dragons who had more magical knowledge than him were Mountainshadow and (possibly) Vasdenjas.
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Ah, people don't like him because if they muck around in Denver too much, there is a chance of becoming dragon chow. But, seriously, just stay off the scopes in Denver, and you have less of a chance of randomly running into him than you do of accidentally bumping into any other dragon. Besides, Denver sucks to run in. Too many national borders to worry about, and subtle law changes you have to keep track of. Not to mention running around with that many fake ID's, at least three for each nation, just in case, and it becomes a huge charlie foxtrot to run properly. Best to just visit, and get out quick. So, really, no reason to stick around and rankle the big dragon when he comes back. And there are easier places to run, for more money, with less serious competition.
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The person who created Ghostwalker hasn't written for Shadowrun for a very, very long time. Care to provide a source for your assertion?
Unfortunately not - I saw it a very, very long time ago in some interview or forum, back when said person was still writing for Shadowrun, and I wouldn't be able to track it down now. Feel free to ignore it.
Except the classical definition of a Mary Sue is that the Mary Sue is a major protagonist in the story.
He certainly feels like that whenever someone mentions him. It could be that I've just seen those ten years in an awfully compressed form, but this dragon just arrives at the scene, claims a metahuman city as his "sovereign territory", and proceeds to eat anyone who displeases him. Any mention of him from that point on, even by other overly powerful NPCs, basically boils down to "don't displease Ghostwalker or he'll eat you". Even in his exit scene in Artifacts Unbound, you have Harlequin and others gushing about how awesome he is to have "out-schemed the schemers". Most of the other dragons are a little more integrated in society - those who behave similarly to Ghostwalker are reviled and have to actually hide from mortal retribution, powerful as they may be. Ghostwalker seems to just get away with his despotic shenanigans.
The truth is, I dislike most of those super-NPCs from Shadowrun, for the same reason I usually dislike Elminster and company in Forgotten Realms. I'd be very glad if there were other ways to allude to Earth's mythical past other than remarking how awesome, inscrutable and invincible they are.
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Even in his exit scene in Artifacts Unbound, you have Harlequin and others gushing about how awesome he is to have "out-schemed the schemers".
I think you need to re-read Praxis.
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Hm... Yeah. I see it's only Harlequin praising Ghostwalker, not others. "Harlequin had to admire the white wyrm for that if nothing else. He played a bunch of schemers like only he or his
clutchmate could."
Dunkhelzahn was alright, because the image of a dragon giving interviews, hosting talk shows and running for President was funny. His will was a cool bit of metaplot because most of it was left open for individual groups to interpret and use as they saw fit.
You never get any variety when it comes to Ghostwalker - every time I've seen him mentioned, it's always a description of how "badass" he is, how he stares down whole military task forces, and how everyone and their mother is afraid of even thinking of going up against him in any way. I'll grant that it may not fit the definition of "Mary Sue", but still, he's this huge invincible dragon without an ounce of real personality beyond "grim and determined". That gets boring quickly. If Praxis is any indication, if Ghostwalker ever shows up in your campaign it's cutscene time, complete with at least one sentence about how the poor runners are out of their league and might as well either bend knee and obey, or roll over and die. Are there any adventures where PCs can pull one over on him?
At least with Lofwyr (the other big dragon who's angry all the time) you get some more color, and a sense that his schemes can be thwarted. You can expect to run against S-K and live to enjoy the money. At least, you do if you ignore that one bit of authorial gushing back in Threats 1 or 2 that said Lofwyr was always twenty steps ahead of everyone else, and if it seemed like you succeeded it was because he wanted you to think that. That's also boring.
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It's a little awkward trying to justify a dragon's behavior (when they are mostly described as having a very alien mentality to humans), but still, Ghostwalker arrived on the Sixth World quite late, and when he did it, his brother, one of the most powerful dragons on the other ages, was already dead (circunstances unknown). I think his posture is quite understandable.
Also, contrary to many, Denver is, so far, the setting I like the most.
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Most of the other dragons are a little more integrated in society - those who behave similarly to Ghostwalker are reviled and have to actually hide from mortal retribution, powerful as they may be. Ghostwalker seems to just get away with his despotic shenanigans.
I think you need to check some info on Aden for example. Or Lofwyr. You better go with - dragons are god-like creatures capable of whatever they want to, and the only way to stop great dragon from doing as he pleases is ...to be another great dragon possibly with some aliance. Ghostwalker simply fits into this, well As dfar as Im playing shadowrun for years, Ive never used any dragon as NPC...only as a possible manace...and this includes Artifacts II run throught Denver, where GW just helped me to build up atmosphere of paranoia and cautiousness while running on dragons turf. Dragons active participation in events...well...that is only in those "Tell them straight" boxes or in cannon things. Influences background and setting...not the game itself...
Sure...when somebody walks into denver considering himself invincible and challenge GW to duel, I never give second thought on theat and I simly say to the rest of the team: and so he disappeared and was never heard again. and ask the player to create new character without any karma from previous, because he apparently learned nothing...
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The first campaign I ran in SR4 was in Denver, mixing the Denver Missions and Emergence with some homebrew. The different Zones added some nice flavour to things and really gave lots of space for new ideas.
Ghostwalker isn't invincible, just really really hard to kill (which seems perfectly reasonable to me). And by and large, you aren't going to attract his attention unless you're really trying...
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You better go with - dragons are god-like creatures capable of whatever they want to, and the only way to stop great dragon from doing as he pleases is ...to be another great dragon possibly with some aliance.
But at least Shadowrun doesn't do the Exalted thing of "Deathlords are amazingly super-clever. They always automatically know the PCs' plans and can thwart them any time they like." Makes even turning up kinda pointless after a while...
Dragons are crazy-smart, and that's absolutely fine. But they make lots of room for cool stories, which is the point.
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He certainly feels like that whenever someone mentions him. It could be that I've just seen those ten years in an awfully compressed form, but this dragon just arrives at the scene, claims a metahuman city as his "sovereign territory", and proceeds to eat anyone who displeases him. Any mention of him from that point on, even by other overly powerful NPCs, basically boils down to "don't displease Ghostwalker or he'll eat you".
The same can be said of any dragon. Or any megacorp CEO. Or any national leader. Or any underworld boss. Not the eating part, usually, but still, if you displease the powerful forces in the world, they can (and will) bring the hammer down on you. I think maybe you're fixating a little too heavily on Ghostwalker, which is keeping you from seeing that this is how most power players in the Sixth (or any) World act. Do you think that doing something to personally raise the ire of Damien Knight is going to be good for your health? Of course not.
Most of the other dragons are a little more integrated in society - those who behave similarly to Ghostwalker are reviled and have to actually hide from mortal retribution, powerful as they may be. Ghostwalker seems to just get away with his despotic shenanigans.
That's because of where he is and who he picks on. Look at Denver, back during the Year of the Comet. You have six countries sharing one sprawl. The UCAS doesn't like any of the others, and certainly doesn't trust them. The CAS hates Aztlan with a passion. Aztlan is scheming how to screw everyone. The PCC hates Aztlan, and doesn't trust the Sioux. The Ute is just plain screwed up. The Sioux thinks anyone who isn't Sioux is out to get them. The city has been the main point of friction since the end of the Ghost Dance war. Everyone knows that if war ever breaks out between the national powers, then Denver is going to be where it happens.
Then, in the middle of a year with the Orichalcum Rush, the Shedim, SURGE, the Probe race, and all the insanity that went along with it, out comes Ghostwalker from the rift, picks up his body, and proceeds to go house on Denver (focusing mainly on Aztlan and S-K). Why doesn't someone use orbital lasers or fighter jets against him, like they did with Alamaise and Feurschwinge? Because there isn't supposed to be a military presence in the Treaty city. The Azzies wanted to bring troops in, but the PCC and others told them it would be an act of war. The military they'd already stashed in Denver tried fighting, but the other countries started talking about treaty violations. Then Ghostwalker shows up at the Council of Denver, and you can see that he's made a deal with all the countries except Aztlan. He gets to rule Denver, which none of the treaty nations particularly cared about doing, so long as their rivals didn't get to do it, and they get to poke Aztlan in the eye, which always makes people happy.
You never get any variety when it comes to Ghostwalker - every time I've seen him mentioned, it's always a description of how "badass" he is, how he stares down whole military task forces, and how everyone and their mother is afraid of even thinking of going up against him in any way. I'll grant that it may not fit the definition of "Mary Sue", but still, he's this huge invincible dragon without an ounce of real personality beyond "grim and determined". That gets boring quickly. If Praxis is any indication, if Ghostwalker ever shows up in your campaign it's cutscene time, complete with at least one sentence about how the poor runners are out of their league and might as well either bend knee and obey, or roll over and die. Are there any adventures where PCs can pull one over on him?
That's the reaction most people have to great dragons, Bira. These are huge creatures of myth and legend, with awesome physical power, an intellect the product of millenia of study, and magical firepower that no single person could hope to match. The right and proper response of everyone who doesn't have a death wish is "Don't screw over a dragon."
Ask people in the outskirts of Tehran about whether you should piss off Aden. Ask the people in Frankfurt what happens when Lofwyr decides to take a fight to someone in person. When you personally get on a dragon's bad side, BAD THINGStm happen. Read one of the pieces of fiction in the SR4A book. A dragon sics MCT on a runner team because one guy slept with one of his adopted daughters, not knowing who she was.
But yes, you can run in his domain, and not get thrashed. You can even do a run against him, and not get eaten, if you're good enough. Why? Because unless you do something to personally raise Ghostwalker's ire, he's going to ignore you like the pawn you are, and go after your masters.
At least with Lofwyr (the other big dragon who's angry all the time) you get some more color, and a sense that his schemes can be thwarted. You can expect to run against S-K and live to enjoy the money. At least, you do if you ignore that one bit of authorial gushing back in Threats 1 or 2 that said Lofwyr was always twenty steps ahead of everyone else, and if it seemed like you succeeded it was because he wanted you to think that. That's also boring.
That isn't just in Threats 1 and 2. Lofwyr is ALWAYS the wheels within wheels kind of guy. He is the Doctor Doom of the Shadowrun world. Even when you foil one plot, that advances three others. And, like Ghostwalker, Lofwyr usually doesn't interest himself in pawns, unless they make themselves particularly troublesome, or go out of their way to insult him. He goes after the masters, and his vengeance is subtle and brutal.
Why? Because he's a dragon, and that's what dragons do.
From what you've said, Bira, I think your problem isn't actually with Ghostwalker or the other immortals in SR. Your problem is that you don't like the fact that there's really no way a PC can get to the same level of personal power as a creature who has lived for thousands of years.
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there's really no way a PC can get to the same level of personal power as a creature who has lived for thousands of years.
Which, IMO, is reasonable. If a PC can get to that level, why are they still running the shadows? What's left for them to do? If they're at that level and running the shadows, that goes WAY beyond munchkin/power gamer in the worst possible sense.
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Oooohhhh a Ghostwalker thread.
The bestest dragon ever, he not only gets to boss around a city, he gets to boss around Treaty city. He doesn't just build an army of loyal retainers he forces the nations of the continent to or he'll eat them, or something. Treaty city is super valuable, but not enough to fight for so Ghostwalker takes it off their hands because otherwise there'd be war, but what was that thing with the big stompy dragon.
Ghostwalker broke Denver and broke the concept of even Dragon's manuevering discretely around national governments and AAA megacorps. He broke any concept of parity between magic and tech (because what's the point of all this tech if dragons win everything). That's why he's the Mary Sue super dragon and that's why I hate him.
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Can...can we get "Mary/Marty Stu" banned as a phrase on this board? I haven't even been here that long and I'm already tired of reading it.
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You people really need to restrict yourselves to only applying 'Mary Sue' to those characters that actually fit the definition. You're as bad as FOX News calling people socialists.
Now, Lurker, let's talk about Denver, and put things in context. You want to know why Denver was important before Ghostwalker showed up? That's right, it was a convenient smuggler haven, and one of those places that, like Berlin during the cold war, didn't have any real strategic advantage, but people held on to it out of pride and because they didn't want the other kid to have that piece of the pie. The treaty nations didn't care about Denver as a city, which is why absolutely nothing got done most of the time. Look at the US Congress today, add in four more parties that all hate eachother, and can't work with the other people at the risk of looking weak, and you got the idea.
So no, they didn't care about Denver. Not one bit. They just didn't want any other nation to have all of it. Then Ghostwalker shows up, kicks Aztlan where it hurts, and throws them out. Now, the other treaty nations may not like eachother that much, but seeing someone take it to Aztlan always makes them smile. And the dragon gave them a bit of a sweetheart deal. Ghostwalker is the one in charge now, so they can leave the running of the city to the Council, and say they are hands off. The ZDF eliminates the constant cold war brinksmanship of always having combat divisions "just passing through", to maintain a military presence without maintaining a military presence. And with a Great Dragon in charge, then the UCAS can at least be sure that the Sioux won't invade their sector, and so on. And furthermore, in a year full of people SURGEing out of control, Orichalcum being found (with the associated Resource Rush), and the FRAGGING DEAD RISING UP FROM THEIR GRAVES AND ATTACKING PEOPLE, most of the treaty nations that weren't Aztlan were content to let Ghostwalker have his fiefdom, and then try to find some way to wheedle more power away from him when the world wasn't going to hell in a handbasket.
You people seem to forget that Ghostwalker was just another part of the whole world going batshit crazy in 2063. All the treaty nations had problems closer to home, so moving Denver further down the list of things that could frag up your day seemed like a good idea at the time.
Ghostwalker didn't break Denver. He gave it a shot in the arm. Denver was, and still is, a hub of smuggling and international espionage. That's not changed. In fact, the spy situation's gotten even more intense, as you have not only spies from national governments and megacorps, but now spies who are looking into the affairs of a dragon, as well as people looking to keep an eye on the religion that takes Ghostwalker as its patron saint. However, instead of six armed camps on a footing that would make Berlin, circa 1956 seem quaint, slowly sliding towards stagnation because the council won't do anything. Now Denver has been revitalized, because people don't like to start businesses in a potential war zone. The Olympics brought a lot of attention Denver's way, and Denver likely wouldn't have gotten either of the games if it was still under the old system. Plus, the rise in the Awakened population of the Hub is directly attributable to Ghostwalker's presence, and that's good for tourism for the whole city.
The core of Denver in SR has always been smuggling and espionage. Ghostwalker only helped that.
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@ChromeZephyr You're stuck with just smiting them.
I think this is hilarious.
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You people seem to forget that Ghostwalker was just another part of the whole world going batshit crazy in 2063.
Year of the Comet events happen between January, 2061 and April, 2062. Ghostwalker first attack in Denver is on December 24th, 2061, and the council hands him full control on January 27th, 2062.
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To me it seems like trolling/Complaining about nothing. Since for some of them that was the first and only post, they seem to have nothing else to add...well, its the same thing as complaining about wireless etc. Useless. Not fun. Not even reasonable.
BUT
It gave Mirikon and some other people oportunity to make a few really good posts about how GW entered the scene and nice recapitulation of historical context of his comming.
Well
What Im more interrested now is his comming back again...
Since he seem to left to metaplanes for some new kind of hunt, according to the Rift scene in A:Unbound...with some hunt finished...also not really clear what it was he was up to in that one. Some things from even previous, Earthdawn era? Or some new recent enemy? Do we know who become his pry before and was finnaly taken down? Any rumors? Or is it only something dragons would understand?
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You people seem to forget that Ghostwalker was just another part of the whole world going batshit crazy in 2063.
Year of the Comet events happen between January, 2061 and April, 2062. Ghostwalker first attack in Denver is on December 24th, 2061, and the council hands him full control on January 27th, 2062.
Mea culpa.
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RE: Mary Sue Mostly a fair cop, Ghostwalker is not a Mary Sue in the traditional sense, he is however the winner of the very special dragon award. He's Sirrug that sticks around to gloat. Anything that gets written about him is basically about how all powerful he is. How the other dragons are so wary about him, how their all fascinated by him, blah blah blah blah.
Ok here's the thing, you have to pick a point to argue from, either Denver is important or it isn't. It's not "sort of important" it's not "kind of important" it's the lynchpin for a treaty city that all the forces maintain troops in. Ghostwalker shows up and invalidates the threaty by giving the Azzies section of the city away. That's fine if the treaty is now invalid and all that's keeping the North American nations from each others throats is a closer form of dente that's fine. They could all either go home or significantly reduce their presence in the city. Sectionalized Denver would cost more to garrison then it would ever reap in tax revenue. Now maybe it has strategic value (if it's a smuggler base it likely does, recalling some cold war planing docs I read through it was marked out as important).
What doesn't make sense is treaty gets invalidated all the council players turn over their troops to GW to command. It might be more effective sure, but the same nationalistic pride that should have prevented them from wanting to just cash their chips and pull those troops back home (to deal with a huge amount of local craziness from YOTC) instead wants them to line up to provide him an honor guard.
Likewise I don't really buy the notion that ghostwalker improves on the Denver setting, The omn-aware, omni-powerful, super dragon worth spying around. Remember his pro-small business policies mean he essentially thumbs his nose at the corporate court. You can't spy on something like that, it's effectively an Omega-Order level problem, that "oh my gosh we can't do anything about it, he's ghost walker".
In short ghost walker isn't someone you spy on, he's not someone you weedle with, or negotiate with, he's a pitbul that said to everyone else in the universe. "This is how it's going to be." And despite that their response to naked agression should have been either reprisal or disengagement (because remember the treaty is now effectively invalid), they all capitulated.
Ghostwalker breaks Shadowrun.
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Not sure how a change in governement in one city invalidates the entire treaty. The Dragon is only city government. Maybe a variation.. Most treaty nations don't even have a sector in Denver. No lose to them and most a too small to argue with a Dragon for no gain.
The sectors had no actual (official) military presence per se, and bringing in outside forces against a dragon requires a full commitment of military and magical resources, resources some of these nations do not posses (others though possess plenty) and then risk getting into a conflict with the other nations. The better answer was to wait and see. By the time they could have martialed real forces, it was over...
Also, these nations are fairly reluctant to get into anything bigger then border skirmishes. When was the last time UCAS even fought a real war? Compared to USA today, UCAS is really isolationist and non-reactive. Could be because the government tends to be even more unstable, politically, the today, losing a war doesnt rate well with the voters (or the corporate sponsors).
I actually think it makes sense to give the city to a neutral party. The troops you mention are closer to a UN peace keeping force then anything else, for the most part, and sectors are still controled, on a day to day basis, by their own national governments.
The only surprising part, and this maybe because of what else was going on, is that the Azzies took it as well as they did. But then again, Denver is far from Aztlan and moving strong enough military forces accross PCC territory is bound to result in a major conflict...
And what does the Corporate Council care, except for Aztechnology? One of their members is Lowfyr, and is it in his interest to have the CC take action against a fellow Great... and set a precident? And no one else cares. The corps weren't kicked out of Denver, they operate fine... except Aztechnology and they are more enemies then friends on the Corporate Council.
And this ignores what happend behind the scenes... after all Nadja was the voice for Big D and the GW comes along. And by the time the its all announced, GW has already sorted things out with the impacted nations behind the scenes.
I dont really see the issue. Has no real impact on my game that a Great runs Denver, or a Great runs a mega corp, or a Great was, for about an hour, President of UCAS. My guys are shadowrunners, not nation builders. They work for the mover and shakers, and GW is just another player in the great game. oh.. and his credit is good.
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Actually, Lurker, the treaty was never invalidated by Ghostwalker's actions. The treaty was amended to reflect the new status quo in Denver. And no, Lurker, the countries couldn't just 'disengage'. Remember that cold war mentality I mentioned earlier? Having a piece of Denver is a bit of pride for the treaty cities. Not pride as in "proud to own it" but pride as in "proud to be keeping it from the other guy". That, and the fact that having all their rivals in one place makes it so the treaty nations can use smugglers and other methods to slip spies into those rival nations. Remember, the two most important things about Denver are spies and smugglers. Everything else is just window dressing to those two things. All the armies were there (even though they weren't supposed to be) for much the same reason as there were troops in Berlin during the cold war. Because you don't trust the other nations not to screw you.
Now here we have a great dragon come and claim the area as his own, and offering the remaining treaty cities a chance to stay in the city. Now, you could try and fight, but there are other dragons that just might take that as an attack on all dragonkind. And since you don't know if you even have the firepower or magic to take down one great dragon, let alone all of them (national militaries still remember Aden and Tehran), fighting isn't an option. So you can't fight, you can't run. What's left? Give the dragon what he wants, and try to find a way to lawyer it away from him later. That part in bold? That's the key you're not seeing. They didn't give in to Ghostwalker because he's so awesome. They gave in because it was the best option at the time, and treaties can be renegotiated later on, when you might have some kind of leverage. That is why the treaty negotiations are going on now.
The ZDF is also a wonderful tool for the treaty nations to spy on eachother. You know all those units which are multinational now? All those troops are going around, picking up on the weapons, training, and tactics that their rivals use. Considering that the UCAS and Sioux are always suspecting eachother of about to start up the Ghost Dance War again, and that the PCC and CAS have an alliance against Aztlan, that's valuable intel.
Also, just because Ghostwalker is pro-small business doesn't mean he is thumbing his nose at the Corporate Court. He didn't revoke the Business Accords, or take over extraterritorial land (except for Aztechnology property). In fact, other than Aztechnology and Saeder-Krupp, the other megas got off quite nicely from Ghostwalker taking over (in part because he thumbed his snout at Aztechnology and Saeder-Krupp, two of the corps the rest of the big 10 love to see taken down a peg). And there's also the fact that the Draco Foundation helped negotiate on Ghostwalker's behalf.
Your problem is that you're thinking short term. Nations and megacorps tend to think longer term. And if a great dragon that looks suspiciously like Dunkelzhan claws his way out of the rift the First Wyrm made when he was killed, it just might be a good idea to figure out where he's been all this time. Because, frankly, anything that could keep a dragon jaunting about the metaplanes for five thousand years is probably something that is going to be important.
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I think you need to check some info on Aden for example. Or Lofwyr.
Lofwyr is one of the dragons who's quite well integrated into society, despite apparently despising it. He owns a megacorp! Which you can run against! And succeed!Personality-wise, he's almost as boring as Ghostwalker, but he's not untouchable.
Aden is the sort of dragon who has to live in hiding. IIRC, Praxis makes a big deal of the fact that he left his hideout to be at that bunker, and that he had to sneak out because people wouldn't hesitate to nuke him if they found out where he was.
You better go with - dragons are god-like creatures capable of whatever they want to, and the only way to stop great dragon from doing as he pleases is ...to be another great dragon possibly with some aliance.
Which is boring as hell, frankly. Why even include this sort of NPC in the game if they're supposed to be untouchable?
I think Catalyst actually has been getting a little better about this in a few of their most recent books. I quite liked that Ghostwalker simply exited stage left in Artifacts Unbound, which also has PCs stealing something from under the nose of an immortal elf, and possibly beating her in combat as well. Twilight Horizon has not one, but several runs into the megacorp's central HQ, as well as interactions with powerful spirits who treat the PCs with respect, rather than the scorn the more "established" immortal despots prefer.
To me it seems like trolling/Complaining about nothing. Since for some of them that was the first and only post, they seem to have nothing else to add...well, its the same thing as complaining about wireless etc. Useless. Not fun. Not even reasonable.
Nah, I'm not a troll. It's just that I haven't yet found how to turn e-mail notifications on in this forum, and I can't be bothered to keep checking it manually all the time.
I don't think my complaints are "unreasonable", but if you want "useful" my main suggestion is simply to allow PCs to be awesome already. Remove authorial protection from the NPCs, allow PCs to face them and come out on top, let them get some respect in the setting, change the world, become legends themselves. Recent adventures have been better about this, as I said above - the main problem, I feel, is one of player perception. I respect that people have different styles, but sometimes it seems allowing PCs to have a significant effect on the setting is some sort of taboo.
The same can be said of any dragon. Or any megacorp CEO. Or any national leader. Or any underworld boss. Not the eating part, usually, but still, if you displease the powerful forces in the world, they can (and will) bring the hammer down on you. I think maybe you're fixating a little too heavily on Ghostwalker, which is keeping you from seeing that this is how most power players in the Sixth (or any) World act. Do you think that doing something to personally raise the ire of Damien Knight is going to be good for your health? Of course not.
PC shadowrunners piss powerful people off all the time. The archetypical run is breaking into a high security corporate research lab, stealing research data worth millions or billions, and handing it over to a rival corp. That's certainly likely to piss off whoever runs the corp you just hit, but the actual in-game consequences are usually getting paid in peanuts and spending some time in that vague, hand-wavey state of "lying low" until the next adventure rolls around. There are published adventures where the players are hired to kill mob bosses, with the worst consequence being that they have to run in a different town for a few months. You get to do a number on Horizon in Twilight Horizon, and while the book warns this will get some heat on the characters, it by no means says this is an inevitable death sentence.
The only places where I've seen concrete examples of this "the hammer will drop" reasoning is in forums, when some GMs are angry at their players for deviating from their plots. The place where I've seen it written with the most vitriol was in a Dumpshock thread about stealing cars of all places. Someone figured stealing cars and breaking them down for parts paid a lot more than the prescribed rate for those deadly runs, and complained about it. Suggestions for "fixing" the problem mostly involved having the angry GM bring down the police and the local crime syndicates at the same time on top of the enterprising PCs, with as much force as they could muster. Not for stealing billions worth of research from a megacorp. Not for assassinating syndicate bosses. For stealing one lousy Ford Americar a week.
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The problem with removing "authorial protection" from NPCs is that it makes, gamers being gamers, every NPC into potentially a one-shot character. There's tough balance to strike between keeping the setting playable and the PCs the stars, and having any sort of recurring NPCs and metaplot.
When we can write in big changes (and tie them to an adventure, so that the PCs cause the change), we do. Trust me, we clamor for the chances to do so. Heck, I was happy just to have the ability to write an adventure about what team wins the Super Brawl.
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Frankly, every time I introduce a new person to my SR group, I make sure they understand that the best parts of the game are what Bira doesnt like. You may become a legrnd, but you will never be the best, because you're mortal and thats life. And no one, not once in 5 billion years, has ever changed the world. SR is truly a world without hope, besides Dunkelzahns legacy, and that is what attracted me to it.
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The omn-aware, omni-powerful, super dragon worth spying around.
I think we are reading the material very differently. Ghostwalker isn't "omni-aware" or "omni-powerful" according to anything published in OOC/rules voice. There are several books with a common thread of him being distracted and vulnerable, after all.
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Lofwyr is one of the dragons who's quite well integrated into society, despite apparently despising it. He owns a megacorp! Which you can run against! And succeed!Personality-wise, he's almost as boring as Ghostwalker, but he's not untouchable.
Full stop, here. A run against S-K is NOT the same as a run against Lofwyr personally. Yes, you can succeed against S-K. Yes, there's even a decent chance that they won't hunt you down like dogs, so long as you made an effort to keep collateral damage low, and didn't take anything too important. But that is VERY different from going on a run against Lofwyr himself. The only time in any written adventure people actually do that (AFAIK) is in Survival of the Fittest, where the only reason Lofwyr doesn't kill them on the spot is because the PCs are pawns in a draconic game, and can't be touched except through other pawns. And even then, Lofwyr promises to make their lives a living hell if they actually follow through with the job they've been paid to do.
But S-K is just like any other megacorp. So long as you don't do anything to move yourself to the top of the 'to do' list, you shouldn't have to worry too much about a reprisal team showing up at the door of every alias you've ever used.
Aden is the sort of dragon who has to live in hiding. IIRC, Praxis makes a big deal of the fact that he left his hideout to be at that bunker, and that he had to sneak out because people wouldn't hesitate to nuke him if they found out where he was.
Actually, it is mainly Lofwyr that passage is referring to. Aden has been deliberately poking Lofwyr in the eye in the middle east for decades now, but has remained too subtle and behind the scenes for Lofwyr to justify taking action, like he did with Nachtmeister. As for the UCAS? The UCAS doesn't have any real reason to harm Aden, other than the fact that Lofwyr might bully them into taking action against a 'terrorist'.
Which is boring as hell, frankly. Why even include this sort of NPC in the game if they're supposed to be untouchable?
Because, no matter how big and bad the players are, there is always a bigger fish.
I think Catalyst actually has been getting a little better about this in a few of their most recent books. I quite liked that Ghostwalker simply exited stage left in Artifacts Unbound, which also has PCs stealing something from under the nose of an immortal elf, and possibly beating her in combat as well. Twilight Horizon has not one, but several runs into the megacorp's central HQ, as well as interactions with powerful spirits who treat the PCs with respect, rather than the scorn the more "established" immortal despots prefer.
Yes, he exited stage left. After setting off the magical equivalent of a nuke in DeeCee. Also, it should be noted that Jenna is not nearly as powerful as her mother, and she'd been weakened by doing a powerful blood ritual trying to recreate an ancient elven city.
PC shadowrunners piss powerful people off all the time. The archetypical run is breaking into a high security corporate research lab, stealing research data worth millions or billions, and handing it over to a rival corp. That's certainly likely to piss off whoever runs the corp you just hit, but the actual in-game consequences are usually getting paid in peanuts and spending some time in that vague, hand-wavey state of "lying low" until the next adventure rolls around. There are published adventures where the players are hired to kill mob bosses, with the worst consequence being that they have to run in a different town for a few months. You get to do a number on Horizon in Twilight Horizon, and while the book warns this will get some heat on the characters, it by no means says this is an inevitable death sentence.
The only places where I've seen concrete examples of this "the hammer will drop" reasoning is in forums, when some GMs are angry at their players for deviating from their plots. The place where I've seen it written with the most vitriol was in a Dumpshock thread about stealing cars of all places. Someone figured stealing cars and breaking them down for parts paid a lot more than the prescribed rate for those deadly runs, and complained about it. Suggestions for "fixing" the problem mostly involved having the angry GM bring down the police and the local crime syndicates at the same time on top of the enterprising PCs, with as much force as they could muster. Not for stealing billions worth of research from a megacorp. Not for assassinating syndicate bosses. For stealing one lousy Ford Americar a week.
You're assuming that the megacorps are a single body, so that if you do any run against Horizon, Gary Cline himself hears about it, and decides whether a reprisal is warranted. That's not how it works, Bira. There is a HUGE difference between stealing a container of Ares rifles, and stealing Damien Knight's personal gun collection. One will make Ares annoyed with you, if you leave traces back to you, but isn't usually worth a reprisal unless it happens regularly, they're high end milspec prototypes, or the shipment actually has a suitcase nuke on board. The other will get one of the most powerful people in the world wanting your blood, and willing to shell out cred to make sure it happens. Do a run against the UCAS, and unless you are doing something HORRIBLY wrong, it isn't going to come to President Colloton's attention unless she was nearby when it happened.
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Personally my issue stands completely seperate from the PC vs NPC issue.
Ghostwalker behaved in a way that should have got him nuked by somebody, the Azzies most likely, any given member of the corporate court as well (he is literally controlling which AAA's come in and out of Denver seizing the assets of the ones he doesn't like. The only other group that tried that Aztlan/Aztechnology got a Omega order slapped on them for that). Now he did that under the guise of advancing small business because small business entrepreneurship was a common buzz at the time Dragons of the Sixth World came out.
Black and Mirikon, the whole reason supposedly Denver exists in it's current state is because of the treaty. If someone unilaterally changes the way the city is administered or gets territory from another party in the treaty unilaterally the treaty is invalid. While that doesn't guarantee war it sure does go a long way to making the whole setup in Denver pointless. You can't say that their holding onto it out of some sense of cold war pride when A) Many of the nations present in the game literally gave up way larger swaths of much more important territory without a blink B) Many of them have only minimal stake in the city it being well removed from their borders C) Then go around and turn over control to the dragon as it's personal fiefdom and D) Provide
Lawyering him later: How? Lawyering implies there are rules and a higher power and leverage and all that stuff. This is Ghostwalker we're talking about, the super cool ultra dragon that dictates terms to national governments and stands beholden to none, who goes Godzilla through major cities and doesn't have the good sense to get the hell out afterwords.
ZDF as an intel tool: Do you honestly believe there arn't a thousand cheaper ways to pick up that knowledge? I think you grossly overstimate the cost benefit to that scenario.
So lets review: You have Denver who at it's most bare is a city held in a cold war Berlin style because that's cool, future dystopia can be shades of the past, that's fine. Everyone adheres's to the treaty because without the treaty there's a very real chance of full on conventional and possibly WMD(conventional and otherwise) war breaking out on the continent. Everyone has to some extent or another a stake is the status quo.
Then one day Ghostwalker the SUPER DRAGON shows up and starts wrecking stuff, except later it's oh he's only wrecking Aztlan and a a few other stuff, and later after the fact it was "oh yea he totally had a deal with all the other nations who distrust each other heavily that he's going to administer things, they are going to provide physical security to his domain and pretty much shut up and color. THey agree to this because they've been handed the idiot ball for this scenario. Aztlan gets the outs because ostensibly their the most hated guy at the table (which is fairly accurate except the PCC and Ute should have more in common with Aztlan historicly then they do with the Yanks or the future Southern Pride.
Now enthroned Ghostwalker more or less suspends the Business Recognition Accords, he completely kicks out or raises one AAA's holdings and prevents another from playing locally, all others that wish to do so must bow and scrape to him as the undisputed master of Denver (RAWR!). Isn't that just so interesting? Isn't it so fascinating? He's super intelligent because everyone on his level power wise by hook or by crook always acts like he's holding all the cards. The only redeeming factor to him is someday someone might decide to shake up the status quo and a bold initiative might see Lofwyr or Damien Knight or anyone else with WMD's say "I bet he hasn't seen one of these before" and drops a thor shot or a cuise missile nuke on him while he's holding court. Yes civilian casualties will be immense but when have corproations ever cared.
Oh well, i can dream, I can dream of a Shadowrun that's not Earthdawn 2070+, where Magic and Tech and most of all metahumanity push the story and not further rounds of Immortal Elves, ancient all knowing dragons, and 4th world artifacts.
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I like the presence of Immortal Elves and ancient all-knowing dragons, because you have no hope of understandung them, much less beating them. And in my vision of Shadowrun, you should never habe any hope at all.
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And in my vision of Shadowrun, you should never have any hope at all.
:^:
(That's a thumbs-up for your kids out there)
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Lurke: Well, I cannot seee why you end up playing shadowrun if you dont want such things. You have some options:
1) cut yourself completely from setting and cannon, use just rules and give your players whatever you want. That if you are GM.
2) If you are player...find the GM that follows the 1st alternative.
Good luck with that.
For me:
1) There are immortal elves, despite I hate them and I try to avoid them if possible.
2) There are Street Legends (some of them), that deserved their status by nothing else than handwaved stats and a few posts on jackpoint. I still use them and have fun with them, since its up to me to meake them really deserve what they are in the eyes of my players.
3) There are omnipotent dragons, that are here from even creation of life and the first cycle of magic, and one of them is Ghostwalker.
4) There are some other people who are frustrated that world isnt what they want it to be. Both IRL and IC.
I play with 1-3. Trying to avoid 4.
And this topic is getting killed by heated dispute if SR authors are doing right something that was possibly planned from even the first page of shadowrun storyline written in Jordan Weismans notebook some 25 years ago.
Meanwhile...
Great white is Missing in action, from time to time there is a story about his return/reappearance in Denver. Nobody seems to know anything for sure. Nobody is telling us whts is going on in Denver...telling that everything continues the way as GW is present would lead me to some crazy ideas...
like...Was it Ghostwalker, who was planning and scheming, luring Aztech into the War with Amazonia, so Aztechnology is hardly able to make any claims supported by significant military threat...since the main body of their army is deadlocked in Bogota?
I havent heard about Primeira Vaga for a while...wher those came from, and who opened doors for Tempo...obviously someone with very good knowledge of deep metaplanes...
like I say...crazy ideas...
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And in my vision of Shadowrun, you should never have any hope at all.
:^:
(That's a thumbs-up for your kids out there)
Oh.
That was a thumb.
(Also, I agree. This is Shadowrun, not some DnD game where you're bound to become powerful enough to not just kill dragons without breaking a sweat, but to take on the GOD of Dragons itself.)
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(Also, I agree. This is Shadowrun, not some DnD game where you're bound to become powerful enough to not just kill dragons without breaking a sweat, but to take on the GOD of Dragons itself.)
Xzyl just summed up my view on this discussion. And did it beautifully.
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I like the presence of Immortal Elves and ancient all-knowing dragons, because you have no hope of understandung them, much less beating them. And in my vision of Shadowrun, you should never habe any hope at all.
This is when you quote Gilbert Keith Chesterton:
"Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."
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And in my vision of Shadowrun, you should never habe any hope at all.
I want hopelessness, I'll watch the evening news.
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And in my vision of Shadowrun, you should never habe any hope at all.
I want hopelessness, I'll watch the evening news.
To each their own. I try my best to run my games where no matter how good my players are, they always live in fear, always feel like nothing they do changes anything. Because that's what real-world operatives go through. That way, when by some miracle they do something worthwhile, it's an even biggee deal because they know even the tiniest ray of hope is amazing. And its never "saved the world" good; more like "made sure orphan Timmy got his heart transplant" good
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We clearly play very different games for very different reasons.
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Sichr thank you for trundling out the hoary old "you are not playing my version of SR so you should find a different game" argument. Please collect your internet to the left and come again. Suffice to say that Shadowrun is a big enough universe I can and have comfortably ran and played in it for years without Ghostwalker ever coming up, good bad or indifferent. I do miss using Denver because as someone who lives in Omaha it's one of our closest detailed sprawls and I'm a far sight more familiar with Denver then I am Seattle (although the latter has gotten better).
I'll take the moment for the slight topic change as were at an impasse anyway. I will mostly close out my discussions that I hope sometime very soon a Great Dragon buys the farm by metahuman hands, preferably by purely technological hands. No immortal elves, no other dragons or drakes, no ancient spirit pacts, just some form of kinnetic energy or other method of mundane death. I also would like a confirmed kill as opposed to "go down in a toxic wasteland and come back" Shadowrun has been going for 20 years now and I for one would like to see a little more Cernak and at little less hand wringing. I would like said dragon to be Ghostwalker because he of all the dragons seems to have no point other then to be the special child of the dragon set. I'm ok with if being anyone else including Golden Snout who would get my prize for "favorite dragon". I'm not asking for PC involvement, I will agree and wholeheartedly support that when you have the PC's be the top of the foodchain it breaks immersion something fierce. Having said that the Dragons are not the only frighteningly powerful individuals in the world.
Now I do have some honest questions for ArkangelWinter, James Meiers, and anyone else who shares that worldview.
Do you actually run games?
How often and for how many do you run?
Is there any level of change that your players would be capable of in your story, a gang, a block, a city, a corp, a nation? Or does status quo just grind down to infinity.
Do you tell people when they sit down "This is my shadowrun game, nothing you do matters." up front.
Now in the interest of full disclosure i will answer my own questions.
Yes I do, I am my groups primary GM and have been in most incarnations of gaming groups
I usually run once a week for 4-8 people. My current gaming group has been going in some incarnation or another for about 8 years now.
My players are capable with proper planing and enough karma and money under their belts of changing the world although often in ways the world at large will never know or thank them for. Harlequins back is a fairly good example of some of the style of changes my players can make if they are brave and dedicated. Others have gone on to "retire" into positions of power and influence people who affect the world in subtle ways for good or ill.
For my part I often tell people. "You may well change the world for a better, it is unlikely though that you will live to see such changes come to full fruition." I find often that if players can't have a good life and a sunset ride for their characters they'll quite contently take a good death.
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Sichr thank you for trundling out the hoary old "you are not playing my version of SR so you should find a different game" argument. Please collect your internet to the left and come again. Suffice to say that Shadowrun is a big enough universe I can and have comfortably ran and played in it for years without Ghostwalker ever coming up, good bad or indifferent.
HH you just didnt get it. What I told you was to develop your own timeline and setting, because powers that shape the world quite often influences the current events players have to deal with...Tempo wars, War, Artifacts, Horizon etc etc. So if you want to kill GW in your game, you are free to do it by any means ncessary. But from that point you wont be able to follow further developement of the setting where GW inevitably ends to play some major role in some major event.
Some 18 years ago when I saw the 2nd ed for the first time, the core book translated to czech was the only book I had. No internet. Not even Grimoire to know how to Initiate magic characters. Also...No cannon, no setting, only vague knowledge that comes later as I get connected to SR universe via Paolo Maruci Archive or Blackjacks corner. Still, I was lost among the shattered pattern that was told to me only in fragments..
And we were having lots of fun, playing shadowrun, enjoying it and having our own timeline to maybe 2080 when we were split because everyone moved to another part of the country/EU. This days, when we are all a bit older, back from studies, having enought time to meet at some neutral land maybe once a month, we follow canon, play in the current setting with large exploitable knowledge of events, relationships, politics, interrests etc. And we are enjoying that also, without any need to railroad stories...just with the respect to powers that be...like you respoect mountains and oceans...they just shape the world, maybe actively, but you can hardly get rid of them...
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So, why is Ghostwalker still alive?
The big reason is that, for all his power, he's currently in a hostage situation, where six nations (Well, four now, really) have citizens in his city, with him at the center of it, and any big activity taken against him could be the spark that ignites war. The Sioux don't trust the UCAS, the PCC absorbed the Ute, the Azzies are gone, the CAS is on friendly terms with the UCAS (But there was that coup attempt a while back) and is friendly with teh PCC, the PCC tries to balance things, and it's all just a mess.
What happens if the UCAS drops a nuke on Ghostwalker, eradicating most of the city in the same move? How well does that sit with teh NAN or PCC or, heck, eve the CAS? Thro shot's a tad mroe feasable, but there's still collateral damage and less chance of hitting. MISSING him in such an attack is bad news.
The Azzies would *love* to get him, but, again, blowing up Denver's no good and, now, they have all of the PCC between them and the city and Horizon is chomping their hindquarters at every turn, PLUS they're fighting Amazonia. CAS certainly won't let them fly over for a different angle, so, they can't get at the city aside from small shadow teams, which, let's be honest, can't do much in the firepower department unless you want to break out a suitcase nuke and there, once again, we get an outbreak of war. To use a modern comparison, it'd be like Iran trying to attack Saudia Arabia, but Iraq is in betwen the two and has utterly no intention of letting armies trot through it to get their war on.
Now, all that said? I'd lay good odds that there are *plans* to deal with him, that there are *hopes* that he can be taken down, and probably diplomatic channels are buzzing with such talk, but assorted politicians need to cover their hinder before running in and killing thouands, if not tens of thousands, of civillians, which could be their own or those of recently-hostile foreign powers. There are probably task forces and special subcomittes and so on, and Damien Knight is contracted by the UCAS to draw up some cool battle plans that will be sealed in a safe for if the president ever orders 'Operation Whitewash' or whatever it gets called.
Right now, business still operates there. Deals are made, negotiations go through, brokering happens, people get food and buy things ... you just have a guy on top of teh castle going, "As long as you call me king, we're solid", and he has bombs strapped to people's chests and a detonator. Crazyman lets stuff get done, they're nod along and pay him lip service, but if he starts blowing up people, well, if they're gonna die *anyway*...
That's my reaidng, anyway.
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Wow lurker, that's quite a leap there.
How exactly did you turn "You don't want to mess with the most powerful, wealthy and influential (not to mention immortal) beings in recorded history." into "This is my Shadowrun game, nothing you do matters."?
Seriously, if you're not capable of seeing a difference between those two statements, I doubt you'll be able to understand our point of view no matter how anyone tries to explain it.
Your own example actually illustrates my point of view more than yours in my opinion. While the stuff done by the PCs in Harlequin's Back -or the Artefacts campaign, or Drug Cartels, etc- does affect the world, they're just pawns in a game being played far above them. I don't mean to say that their actions don't matter, but let's be frank here. Do you honestly believe that if they'd refused the job and told Harley to "stick it where the sun don't shine, just hand over the credstick and we'll let you walk away unharmed", they'd have stood a chance? Or would they have just dropped dead then and there and Harley'd have found a different group of people to use as pawns?
Shadowrunners -by definition- are the disposable and replaceable people that get hired to do the jobs the rich & powerful don't want to get their hands dirty on.
This doesn't mean their lives are meaningless. I'm sure every one of them has a reason to be 'running and a goal they want to achieve. And a very few of them might just live long enough to get there... but it won't be the ones who decided that they're tough enough to fight in the big leagues.
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Frankly, every time I introduce a new person to my SR group, I make sure they understand that the best parts of the game are what Bira doesnt like. You may become a legrnd, but you will never be the best, because you're mortal and thats life. And no one, not once in 5 billion years, has ever changed the world. SR is truly a world without hope, besides Dunkelzahns legacy, and that is what attracted me to it.
This more or less is directly what i'm speaking to. ArkangelWinter in specific, and several people seem to toss agreement, and please please please correct me if I am reading wrong. They seem to paint an extremely bleak picture, dare I say it an unfun picture, the best you can hope for is saving orphan Timmy. Because somehow they've got it into their heads that that's what's realistic or proper or something. That's my segway, nothing more, nothing less. I'll concede there's a lot of room for play style, I just don't get it which is why I want to ask and understand. Do people actually sit down to play a RPG they know is just completely fixed against them, and not in a humorous way like Paranoia or a traditional way like Cthulu (and sometimes you can "win" Cthulu, or at least the surviving guys can, sanity not guaranteed.
What's always hooked me about Shadowrun is this notion that despite that the world is crap you can pick your level of heroism. You can be just in it to survive and get paid, in it for the thrill, in it for the cause, or you can be any of those who sees something that makes you say "my character would rather die then let this continue, someone pass me the assault cannon and the whiskey please."
I'm not going to really get into a discussion about Harley, suffice to say that a group of runners that is the odd combination of both extrodinarily rash and extrodinarily powerful wanted to jump him i'd make some stuff up rather then "He kills you with his mind cuz he is immortal elf LULZ" now having said that you don't get to be Harlequins age without preparing for betrayal and being stupid powerful, but for mortal flesh and blood non draconic beings, even magically powerful ones, there is a lot of risk at the 6 foot engagement range. Otherwise they'd do everything themselves.
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Harley's stats include: Quickened Force 20 armor, Force 20 Combat Sense and Anchored Force 30 Heal and Improved Invisibilty which triggers the second he's hurt, enough karma to cheat death a dozen times and a Force 20 Bound Elemental as bodyguard..
That's not "LULZ, my NPC is under GM protection and you can't touch him! Na na nana nah!"
It's reality in the world Shadowrun is set in.
There's nothing or noone saying your PCs ever have to deal directly with the guys on top of the foodchain, you can run a SR campaign without the players ever having to deal with an IE or Dragon.
But saying they stand a chance to survive and prosper if they decide to mess with the games from up top? I just don't think that's SR.
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I think Shadowrun supports a wide range of play styles. You can play it up as being a completely bleak dystopia with no hope or go with a rogues with a heart of gold theme and have the characters able to make a small difference to individuals here and there or have the players as real heroes, making a real difference, saving the city of innocents from terrorists or invading bug spirits etc. Why pigeon hole the game when there are so many ways to play.
Likewise, regardless of how powerful GW is or any any immortal elf or the Black Lodge or the UCAS president or whatever, they don't have to impact your game if you don't want them to. My games are a mix of revamped published items and personal stories based on the character's backgrounds and motivations.
Finally, no one has to adhere to the setting and metaplot. In many ways, we all make our own way (unless you only play published adventures and they always end up working out exactly as per spec...). My runners got involved in a coup with the Cascade Orcs and now Pale Shaggy Mountain is no longer the tribal leader. Instead a toxic shark shaman is. Minor change, world didn't end. Unless you run in Denver, for example, your runners may never get involved with Mr GW. Or you can just remove him in your game. Nuke the city or something, kill the Great. Personally, I wouldn't bother, I would just ignore it if I didn't like it, but you can always 'fix' the bits you don't like in your game.
Now Wakshanni (great post by the way) and others have outlined why GW didn't get iced during or after his attack. For me it makes sense and its consistent. For me, taking out the Great would make less. I feel that your opinion is the opposite. Such is life.
Now, my game is set in 2050 (cause I want to take my players through the rich history of Shadowrun), so they won't have to deal with GW for sometime... but when he does arrive, I fully intend for them to be in Denver for the fireworks. Maybe even run into Hard Exit pre-shadowrunning days :).
Oh, my answers to your questions (love exams, hope I pass...)
I currently gm a game once a fortnight
Group is currently around 10 people with about 4-7 playing per a session. I dred the night that everyone can make it... This group has been playing for about 1 1/2 years (completed Mecurial, half of Harelquin, and currently doing a very revamped DNA DOA). Previously played/gm in a game for about 6 years with my high school buddies (1st to 3rd edition).
Players can make any difference they want, if they are capable. That said, the biggest change they have made have been a coup in a NAN nation, the best change was paying for new cybereyes a poor orc mother of five. (admitly they accidently fried her last pair... but it was nice of them to come back and help her out). Generally the player characters in my currently game are not motivated by a desire to change the world, but more focused on their own personal goals and ambitions (become a powerful fixer in the local scene, report back to a Great Dragon sponsor, serve the Triad, gain money and power, that sort of thing).
I tell them the world is a bleak distopia. A signle visit to the barrens shows them that anyway. I play up the decay and the corruption, the class structures between corp and non-corp, the bias and racism against, well everything. But I don't tell them they cant make a difference. If they want to make a difference, that's up to them.
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Sorry I can't do the whole quote thing on.this phone, but I'll try to answer the questions i've seen:
I've run weekly SR game, sometimes 2, with limitec holiday/work interruption for almost 3 years. There's a total of about 10 people in our extended group. When new players join, I make sure they know that it is a world without hope. The average person they encounter is glad to have food, much less change a thing. I had a player once become head of Denver Vory, and find that he still had so much paperwork and politics to handle that his position of power didnt equate to using it as he saw fit.
Its not the realism, it's the unreallistically bleak world, where everybody's willing to sell out anybody, and even if you, say, topple Aztechnology on Monday, something just as bad is there by Tuesday, Wednesday at the latest. The more things change...
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There's no "badwrongfun" in Shadowrun, guys. It's a pretty damned diverse setting -- with the inclusion of magic and other fantasy tropes, cyberpunk and that baggage, and the increasing transhumanism, it's in some ways the most diverse setting I can think of -- and it can support an awful lot of groups with an awful lot of different mental pictures.
No one's playing it wrong, fellas, and as long as you and your group are having fun, you're playing it absolutely right.
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And in my vision of Shadowrun, you should never habe any hope at all.
I want hopelessness, I'll watch the evening news.
It's certainly not to be informed. TV news is worthless.
Anyway, I haven't GMed in years. When I did, my campaigns were bleak as Critias can confirm to the point that the effects of Crash 2.0 was magnitudes worse as background and plot elements to our last campaign. His PC got a big hero moment, but so what? He walked away victorious, but the world would remain FUBAR.
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To put it bluntly, Lurker, if the Azzies ever knew Ghostwalker was going to pop up somewhere that wasn't a heavily populated area, then yes, they might nuke him. Assuming, of course, that a nuke could actually kill him (and we don't know that for sure, since Dunkelzhan let himself be destroyed by the nuke that created the rift). But any nation or megacorp using weapons of mass destruction in a populated area is going to catch hell, unless there happen to be thousands of bug spirits running all over the place. Even then, Ares still caught a lot of flak for the Cermak blast. And Aztlan/Aztechnology certainly isn't going to nuke denver, and get the NAN, CAS, and UCAS looking to kick their ass. Aztlan could probably take one or two of those, but not all three. Especially not with Amazonia looking for a reason to wipe them off the map. And Amazonia also has a great dragon in charge of it.
And the only mega barred from Denver at present is Aztechnology. Ghostwalker still allows Saeder-Krupp to do business in the city, but he awarded a lot of construction projects to locals instead of S-K. What the Azzies did in nationalizing everything is take the toys from all the other megas, not just the AAAs, but the AAs and As as well, and give them to Aztechnology. That is orders of magnitude different from kicking one mega out of a single sprawl.
Your problem is that you don't look at things in context. You see Ghostwalker blast a few buildings, and kick the Azzies in the pills, and you say "Why didn't they nuke him?" You forget that he is still in the middle of DENVER, and that nukes are not exactly as specific as a sniper rifle.
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Thank you for your responses it doesn't sound like how i'd spend my gaming time but then again I feel the same way about Cthulu. Moving on:
Actually Dunkelzhan was killed by a very powerful but presumably conventional bomb. I would be very saddened if anything in the game, including dragons stood up to a near brush even a Shadowrun nuclear explosive. But that's beside the point, conventional explosives, laser weaponry, thor shots, all that stuff is still staggeringly powerful. Many of them can be deployed rapidly, also have a relatively small footprint, not small as in trivial but "small as in the Azzies would likely accept it" size. They are the reasons most of the dragon's move behind the scenes or surreptitiously. Not Ghosty though.
Xzylvador: No force 20 spells sound about right, and Harly's immune to most of the other ways you get around stuff like that between being a powerful mage and an Immortal Elf. What i'm saying is that at some point "If we stat things people will kill them" became a reason not to stat them, which is missing the point. If people can come up with a way to have their characters get a crack at the greats they should have a chance, no matter how small of killing them. The nice thing about Shadowrun however is very few of the great powers (dragon, immortal elf, AAA CEO) would be limited to their stat blocks. One of the appealing things about Harley is he eschews most of that and relies on his own juice.
Also, at least as of Dragons of the Sixth world (one of these days i'll get around to reading the Denver update in Spy Games, i'm so far behind) Ghostwalker was literally holding SK out of Denver, maybe they've reversed that, that's fine, all the better for it.
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Actually Dunkelzhan was killed by a very powerful but presumably conventional bomb.
Sort of.
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Actually Dunkelzhan was killed by a very powerful but presumably conventional bomb.
Sort of.
Heh.
Plus, well.,. Dunkie LET himself be killed. he shut down all his protections, his contingency spells, dismissed his protective spirits, etc. He committed suicide. :)
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I personally pity the people who planted that bomb when 'runners like FastJack find them...
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Now Wakshanni (great post by the way) and others have outlined why GW didn't get iced during or after his attack. For me it makes sense and its consistent. For me, taking out the Great would make less. I feel that your opinion is the opposite. Such is life..
Thank you! That always brings a smile to my face, and gets you a +1. :)
And, as Critias said, there's really no wrong way to play Shadowrun. Bull isn't going to come to your house, kick teh door open, and take all your books if you decide that all your Orks should talk in Cockney accents and wear Laederhosen. Oh, he'll die a little inside, but you get to keep your stuff.
I've seen grim n gritty Shadowrun, where Dragonhunt would be considered a HAPPY ending, Cyber Noir (My own personal game), frentic Pink Mohawk action, attempts at ultra-professional Ocean's Eleven stuff, high-magic Dragonball Z-like anime fighting style stuff, and a dozen more.
Shadowrun has a LOT of angles. I always encourage people to experiment, see what works best for them. Maybe you like jet-setting and dispoable 10,000 Nuyen IDs, and maybe you like rat-on-a-stick meals and runners that envy the good fortune of Peter Parker. It's all good!
Heck, back in the day, there were guidelines for playing a game as rookie street scum, a Docwagon team, or even serve and protect as Lone Star officers. It really is a great launching pad for all KINDS of stuff.
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Really, Peter Parker might as well be in a D zone for his apartment conditions. The only lifestyle categiry he shelled out for was neighborhood.
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Wow, I seem to have opened Pandora's Box with this thread. However, I am quite enjoying how the conversation has developed! :P
<Scribbles more notes, furiously>
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Well, don't let it go to your head... these boards even a thread about drop bears could turn into an epic and eternal flame war battle. ;)
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I want hopelessness, I'll watch the evening news.
It's certainly not to be informed. TV news is worthless.
I thought we'd established that a long time ago.
I think a lot of you would pelt me with rocks and garbage if you were to play in one of my games. I clearly don't do it nearly dark and grimy enough for you. I prefer -- hell, I don't just prefer it, I require it -- there to be a ray of hope in my games, and in general the player characters are going to be pursuing that for some of my movers and shakers. They may not realize it, they might just be doing it for the money, but they're out there trying to make the world better.
Some of my efforts, whether people realized it at the time or not, are in fact canon at this point. I just need to finish making McAllister's life miserable for a while so I can document it a bit more fully.
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Wow, this thread grew while I was away.
Me, I like dark settings only as far as they can be made brighter through the application of PCs. I would definitely not play in any table whose GM gets a kick out of making Warhammer 40K look like kindergarten.
Reading some of the "verisimilitude" arguments in this thread, I'm left wondering how many of the same people who say "you can never ever hurt the 'greats' because that's realistic" also say to the PCs "No matter how powerful they get, no one will be truly safe from a random punk with a gun because that's realistic." They can't both be true :D. If no one is safe from a punk with a gun, why can't a punk with a gun kill one of those NPCs given the right circumstances? I tend to find that, in general, these NPCs are a lot more untouchable in the minds of certain players than in the actual text.
Which brings us back around to the "retribution" argument. Mirikon basically says "if you don't do anything too bad, the corps won't even notice you, but pissing someone specific off is certain death". But that archetypal run I mentioned does involve doing something "bad enough" - you're stealing vital research! Or maybe extracting a disgruntled genius along with his irreplaceable body of work. Ares would be a lot angrier about that than about someone stealing Knight's gun collection, and yet they somehow can't do anything about it as long as the players are following the script.
For a more concrete example, you have Ghost Cartels, where the PCs get to kill the top Yakuza boss in Seattle and get away with it. And there's a Missions adventure that asks PCs to blow up the Brooklin Bridge and expects them to still be around for the rest of the campaign if they succeed. There's less retribution thrown at the PCs for going through those published adventures than there is for them going off the rails and stealing cars in that Dumpshock thread I mentioned. So my thesis is that this sort of invincible retaliation is more often a punishment for deviating from the script than it is a logical consequence of the setting, which is after all about doing daring heists and living to tell the tale.
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Just my 0.2 ¥ on the issue of retribution by a Great, another individual and a Corporation:
Revenge is a losers game - most of the times, it's not a profitable endeavor. But an individual person may as well think just with it's liver (sorry, don't know if the expression exists in English) and do a huge thing in order to fix his broken pride. Dragons are also a proud kin, but Corporation usually will think with their wallets.
Not that there aren't some really, really strange situations in some games, but that's how I see a lot of thing.
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Damien Knight would hire operatives to find his guns and shrug it off. Most Greats would do the same with their non-magical possessions. But steal from Aden, Sirrug, or Ryumyo, and I doubt it would mattet it was the Eye of Vecna or a Joe Orkie baseball card, there'd be war. Aden and Sirrug for the insult, Ryumyo for honor.
Most of my games devolve to the players only taking jobs against the same corps or crime boss or 2 (in the last game, the Denver Vory until a player managed to take it over). I guess they figure if you're already on their shitlist, no use in expanding your list of enemies.
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If no one is safe from a punk with a gun, why can't a punk with a gun kill one of those NPCs given the right circumstances?
I'm sorry, did you miss Harley's always-present defenses that I posted? And that's nothing compared to the Dragons.
The corporate CEO's are the 'easiest' targets, though you can expect their security to be that of the US president times a thousand. 'Punk with a gun' won't get anywhere near them and even if they somehow did would be taken down by a sniper or a wagemage before he raise the weapon.
And as for the whole retribution thing, the reason 'runners don't usually get too much retribution for their actions is the same reason they aren't a threat to the guys on top: runners are pawns. They're tools used to complete a job.
If your top-secret research gets stolen, tracking down the team of runners will be
1. quite hard simply because of the fact that they are so 'lowly', they're a bunch of common people hiding in a city/country full of common people.
2. useless when you get them because they'll have already passed on said research to a guy named "Mr. Johnson"
So unless they went out of their way to really piss off the person/company (or they're just in a really bad mood), their victim's resources are much better spent trying to find out who sent the runners, how to undo the damage, retrieve the stolen property or get revenge at the real enemy.
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Which brings us back around to the "retribution" argument. Mirikon basically says "if you don't do anything too bad, the corps won't even notice you, but pissing someone specific off is certain death". But that archetypal run I mentioned does involve doing something "bad enough" - you're stealing vital research! Or maybe extracting a disgruntled genius along with his irreplaceable body of work. Ares would be a lot angrier about that than about someone stealing Knight's gun collection, and yet they somehow can't do anything about it as long as the players are following the script.
You're not getting my point, Bira. Ares will only hunt you as long as it is economically feasible. Stealing research? Extracting lab techs? That's part of the Great Game. Ares won't go after the runners, unless they are sloppy and easily caught, they'll go after the person who orchestrated the run. But steal from Knight himself? Knight himself has the resources to have you hunted down like a dog, and he's the kind of vengeful person who WILL carry a grudge. Ares as a company won't care, but Knight may make a point of seeing you hung up by your entrails for it.
For a more concrete example, you have Ghost Cartels, where the PCs get to kill the top Yakuza boss in Seattle and get away with it. And there's a Missions adventure that asks PCs to blow up the Brooklin Bridge and expects them to still be around for the rest of the campaign if they succeed. There's less retribution thrown at the PCs for going through those published adventures than there is for them going off the rails and stealing cars in that Dumpshock thread I mentioned. So my thesis is that this sort of invincible retaliation is more often a punishment for deviating from the script than it is a logical consequence of the setting, which is after all about doing daring heists and living to tell the tale.
You need more context here, Bira. Are they supposed to pin the blame for the Yakuza hit on someone else? Did they have an angel keeping their names off the radar? The Yakuza will certainly send hitters after the group, though. But that isn't the overwhelming asswhooping you'd be in for if you personally tweaked the nose of a megacorp CEO. As for the Bridge, how 'blown up' are we talking? Enough to be made unservicable until repaired? Or complete demolition? Because the latter one would get some serious retaliation, unless someone was pulling strings behind the scenes to keep that from happening. But you'd probably move a few spots up on the FBI's "To Do" list, regardless. Moreover, blowing up the bridge isn't targeting a single individual.
Targeting the organization? That can be ignored as part of the Great Game, and dealt with as normal. Directly attacking one of the uber-powerful? That is a personal affront that cannot be overlooked without conveying weakness. The size of the retribution will depend on the size of the insult, and how ruthless or petty the person is, but there will be retribution.
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Wow, this thread grew while I was away.
They seem to do that, I've noticed. ;D
Reading some of the "verisimilitude" arguments in this thread, I'm left wondering how many of the same people who say "you can never ever hurt the 'greats' because that's realistic" also say to the PCs "No matter how powerful they get, no one will be truly safe from a random punk with a gun because that's realistic." They can't both be true :D. If no one is safe from a punk with a gun, why can't a punk with a gun kill one of those NPCs given the right circumstances? I tend to find that, in general, these NPCs are a lot more untouchable in the minds of certain players than in the actual text.
I think the difference is one of scale. Getting a punk with a gun in a spot to splatter the brains of the top-of-the-food-chain-NPCs against the wall vs getting them in place to do the same vs the PCs or, say a middle-management NPC is that the TOTFCNPCs didn't get there by accident. They got there through brains, firepower, luck, supernatural advantage in some cases, and hard experience. It should be tremendously difficult to get the drop on them and if you manage to do so, well, that's why they have those contingency-plan-quickened/anchored/what-have-you ultra-high rating spells and spirits for. Add in the fact that most of the beings that are on the "functionally immortal" list have been around for so long that just by being that old they have seen quite a bit of what people are capable of, so surprising them is just that much more difficult. Anyone can die, but geeking Joe Manager is going to be a lot easier to accomplish than geeking Damien Knight. So much so that I would think it wouldn't actually be worth the effort to do so, and even if it is (Art Dankwalkther comes to mind) the other mega-entities of the setting will see fit to make you not a threat to their status quo. *shrug* I'd say to my players that if you want a shot at Lofwyr or Ghostwalker, start saving up for the leonization treatments or brainwashing adherents, 'cause you're going to need to play the same long game they do to do so, which tends to be beyond the scope of the game.
Well, that was rather long-winded of me. TL;DR: They're not un-killable, just probably not worth the stupidly huge amount of difficulty to do so.
Which brings us back around to the "retribution" argument. Mirikon basically says "if you don't do anything too bad, the corps won't even notice you, but pissing someone specific off is certain death". But that archetypal run I mentioned does involve doing something "bad enough" - you're stealing vital research! Or maybe extracting a disgruntled genius along with his irreplaceable body of work. Ares would be a lot angrier about that than about someone stealing Knight's gun collection, and yet they somehow can't do anything about it as long as the players are following the script.
For a more concrete example, you have Ghost Cartels, where the PCs get to kill the top Yakuza boss in Seattle and get away with it. And there's a Missions adventure that asks PCs to blow up the Brooklin Bridge and expects them to still be around for the rest of the campaign if they succeed. There's less retribution thrown at the PCs for going through those published adventures than there is for them going off the rails and stealing cars in that Dumpshock thread I mentioned. So my thesis is that this sort of invincible retaliation is more often a punishment for deviating from the script than it is a logical consequence of the setting, which is after all about doing daring heists and living to tell the tale.
This I agree and disagree with you on. There's a certain suspension of disbelief that has to exist for Shadowrun to even exist, vis á vis the realism of the response to a team's actions. So I would expect that if the setting says "losses due to shadowruns are built into the bottom line as a cost of doing business" that corps would only bring down the thunder (or Thor shots as the case may be) on actions that would cripple them (which most teams simply aren't capable of by themselves), rather than simply cause them to lose .01% of that fiscal year's profit margins. Pride, though, becomes a different matter and that's what you're generally hitting if you do something against the mega-powers of the setting. That said, icing the oyabun of Seatle seems a bit far-fetched, at least for a team not composed of "prime runners". So I agree with you there. The Missions stuff I tend to give a bit of a pass to, as it's for conventions and not long-term play, so I guess I expect a certain degree of railroading and "no you can't kill them" if only to keep in the time restrictions of the 'con.
As for the specific thread you mention on Dumpshock...that just seemed silly to me, on both sides. If your players want to do that to the exclusion of what you as the GM are trying to do, maybe it's just time for someone else to run a different game. That way (hopefully) both sides can have fun.
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To each their own. I try my best to run my games where no matter how good my players are, they always live in fear, always feel like nothing they do changes anything.
I try to run my games so that that feeling certainly comes up quite often* but the runners can, if they really throw themselves at something, make a difference. And crucially, that the things they do matter - maybe not to them, but certainly to the Johnson and the target. So they might not make changes that they like or that they chose, but they do make changes.
*: recently, my wetwork-averse team delivered The Dragon (of Chasing The Dragon (http://www.shadowrun4.com/missions/downloads-season-2/#anchor-SRM 02-08 Chasing the Dragon) fame) to Lone Star (relocated the mission to Seattle). He's been offered immunity and witness protection to turn traitor on the Yaks - so the Yaks have abducted two of the PCs' friends and ordered them to kill the Dragon or watch their friends die...
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I personally pity the people who planted that bomb when 'runners like FastJack find them...
Of course, lots and lots of teams remember planting that bomb, per Super Tuesday, IIRC...
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Of course, lots and lots of teams remember planting that bomb, per Super Tuesday, IIRC...
Yeah, but the ones who actually did it...
Oh yeah, they going to wish they were just dead slow and painful...
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Mmm, the conspiracy theoristes are out in force today. ;)
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Mmm, the conspiracy theoristes are out in force today. ;)
Ghostwalker was never a dragon at all! It's just a clever hologram projection and some missiles shot at preprogramed times at the right spot, by the VICTIM ITSELF! It's just an Aztlan scam to make dragons look bad, but it has gone wrong and now they have no way to put it down!
And that's, my friends, it's what happens when you get Plan 9 drunk.
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Actually, Plan 9 can't get drunk due to an augmentation (s)he has that prevents it from happening, as that's the first step to...
...
How do I know I can really trust you?
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Have I mentioned how much I lovbe writing for Plan 9?
Because I really, really do.
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Which brings us back around to the "retribution" argument. Mirikon basically says "if you don't do anything too bad, the corps won't even notice you, but pissing someone specific off is certain death". But that archetypal run I mentioned does involve doing something "bad enough" - you're stealing vital research! Or maybe extracting a disgruntled genius along with his irreplaceable body of work. Ares would be a lot angrier about that than about someone stealing Knight's gun collection, and yet they somehow can't do anything about it as long as the players are following the script.
Revenge isn't profitable. Hunting down a runner team costs time and money and will be a pain in the ass unless they were stupid and left a bunch of clues. And it will net exactly 0 nuyen for the company: the runners have already passed on whatever they stole to the Johnson. It can't be undone. Nor will brutal retaliation prevent future runs: there will always be someone desperate enough to risk death for a payday, and MCT's Zero Zone policy hasn't prevented them from being subject to shadowruns. Shadowruns are just the price of doing business, and shadowrunners are just tools. The real enemy is the rival corporation that hired them. Do you waste your time avenging yourself on a blunt object, or do you go after the one who swung it?
It's only when personal pride gets involved that people start throwing good money after bad and wasting money on revenge for such slights.
For a more concrete example, you have Ghost Cartels, where the PCs get to kill the top Yakuza boss in Seattle and get away with it. And there's a Missions adventure that asks PCs to blow up the Brooklin Bridge and expects them to still be around for the rest of the campaign if they succeed.
The team in Ghost Cartels framed the Mafia for the hit, keeping the Yakuza too distracted by revenge to realize their mistake until they're distracted by the mob war that's started. As for the Brooklyn Bridge example... I kind of agree that it's pretty outrageous, and an adventure that I would never try to run with my regular group because they'd just be like "Are you nuts?" (plus the high collateral damage factor), but at the end of the adventure the Johnson does take the fall to protect the runners, and there are secret corporate interests at work that actually want the bridge destroyed and the Johnson blamed who helped cover things up.
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Have I mentioned how much I lovbe writing for Plan 9?
Because I really, really do.
He's a fun character. I didn't use him much in Safehouses, but I loved what I did put in.
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Plan 9's a hoot, because, sometimes, Plan's stuff is *right*, but no one else can ever see that.
Slamm-o! is a given, as is Kane, and /dev is getting moments, now, that don't revolve around "Uhm. What's that?" so, character growth = good thing.
I think I have trouble treating Netcat fairly, but I've also found Icarus to be ... damn handy.
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CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT! We can't have that! Status Quo is God! ;D
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Hush you! Next thing you know, people will be wanting *depth* and stuff.
And then Slamm-O! gets all eyeliner'd and talking about Pathos and the like.
And nobody wants that.
"Why are you crying?"
"Because it's 2 PM!"
"What does that have to do with anything?!"
"I don't know! I think it has something to do with Tumblrrrrr Waaaahhhh..."
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Hush you! Next thing you know, people will be wanting *depth* and stuff.
And then Slamm-O! gets all eyeliner'd and talking about Pathos and the like.
And nobody wants that.
"Why are you crying?"
"Because it's 2 PM!"
"What does that have to do with anything?!"
"I don't know! I think it has something to do with Tumblrrrrr Waaaahhhh..."
Hey, we need some shallow points so we can recognize depth elsewhere.
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That's why you have to watch both Breaking Bad and the Kadashians.
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And now I have "Breaking the Kardashians" in my head as a show.
Curse you!
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I would pay to see that show.
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I would pay to make that show.
Would someone Kickstarter that?
Heisenberg vs. The Kardashians, now that would rock. Just start with him knocking on the door (http://youtu.be/wMEq1mGpP5A). ;D
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I'm sorry, did you miss Harley's always-present defenses that I posted? And that's nothing compared to the Dragons.
I chalk those up to "authorial protection", where "author" here can just as easily mean "the GM of that campaign". I might have missed you quoting the source of those numbers, but to me it seems they were written by starting from the conclusion that "Harlequin is invincible" and working backwards to a set of numbers that seemed sufficiently high to justify that.
A more general answer to the "they have defenses" argument: I get it that these NPCs are powerful. I get that they'll have lots of security in place to protect their sorry hides. Bodyguards, fortresses, magic, and so on. In my opinion, it's okay to state that, and it's okay to design a hellishly hard security scheme around them, should the PCs go after these people for one reason or another. But if the PCs happen to get past all of that through their own creativity and personal power, then it's not okay to make new "unbeatable" defenses on the spot just to force failure upon them. That crosses the line into authorial protection and railroading. If someone is crazy and resourceful enough to stick a high-explosive rocket down a dragon's throat, then it goes down.
And as for the whole retribution thing, the reason 'runners don't usually get too much retribution for their actions is the same reason they aren't a threat to the guys on top: runners are pawns.
Revenge isn't profitable. Hunting down a runner team costs time and money and will be a pain in the ass unless they were stupid and left a bunch of clues
The team in Ghost Cartels framed the Mafia for the hit (...)
There's a certain suspension of disbelief that has to exist for Shadowrun to even exist, vis á vis the realism of the response to a team's actions.
I'm answering to all of the above in aggregate as well. I agree that there's a degree of suspension of disbelief involved here. However, I argue that it should be applied consistently. The rationalizations for why shadowrunners get away with scripted runs where someone hires them apply just as well to runs they perform out of their own personal initiative. Yet the same target is often said to be able and willing to find them and exact revenge when in the later case, but not in the former.
Shadowrunners are called "deniable assets" in corp-speak for a reason. An employer will almost never be willing to take the fall for a runner team they hired, and they'll almost never even help them hide. If the employer is a "power" themselves, the "almost never" becomes "never". If a competent runner team is able to hide from retribution when hired by someone, they should be equally good at it when working for themselves. Cross the mob/corps/dragons and they'll hunt you, sure, but they won't be any more able to find you than they were the last 50 times you crossed one of them on behalf of some power or other.
Let's take the Ghost Cartels example again, where a top Yakuza boss is assassinated. The runners avoid retribution from that because they frame someone else for the murder. Okay, that's valid. Now let's say that, instead of being hired by someone to do this, they decide to kill the gangster because one of the PCs had their family killed by him years ago. The rest of the group goes along because they got his back. No one hires them to do this. They make a sound plan, get the boss when he's vulnerable, pin the deed on the Mafia, and lay low for a while in another city, just like they'd do in the "for-hire" run. In my mind, they should be just as able to get away with their personal vendetta as they would with a normal run.
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Let's take the Ghost Cartels example again, where a top Yakuza boss is assassinated. The runners avoid retribution from that because they frame someone else for the murder. Okay, that's valid. Now let's say that, instead of being hired by someone to do this, they decide to kill the gangster because one of the PCs had their family killed by him years ago. The rest of the group goes along because they got his back. No one hires them to do this. They make a sound plan, get the boss when he's vulnerable, pin the deed on the Mafia, and lay low for a while in another city, just like they'd do in the "for-hire" run. In my mind, they should be just as able to get away with their personal vendetta as they would with a normal run.
All things being equal, I would tend to agree. If the runners really do plan and execute the run brilliantly and leave nothing to point back to them, then they should get to get away with it, at least for the time being. (Of course, since megacorporate CEOs have far greater resources than runners, and dragons may have means and methods available that runners cannot possibly know of and account for, pulling a perfect run against them is much more difficult than against some Yakuza boss. But if they manage it--a very big "if" indeed--they deserve to get away with it.)
A team doing the job for hire, however, may have an advantage over the team executing the run on their own, as the employer may have supplied the brilliant plan based on information that they possess and the runners do not, or may have provided the runners with information or assets that will greatly facilitate the execution of whatever brilliant plan they develop and the subsequent shifting of blame.
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I'm answering to all of the above in aggregate as well. I agree that there's a degree of suspension of disbelief involved here. However, I argue that it should be applied consistently. The rationalizations for why shadowrunners get away with scripted runs where someone hires them apply just as well to runs they perform out of their own personal initiative. Yet the same target is often said to be able and willing to find them and exact revenge when in the later case, but not in the former.
Here's the thing, Bira: People aren't consistent. Pull the same job, in the same way, against the same person, and you may get different reactions based on their mood, time of the month, whether they lost that poker game last night, and more. Now, depending on who you target and how well you cover your tracks, they may have an overwhelming tendency to react one way, but there is no guarantee there.
Shadowrunners are called "deniable assets" in corp-speak for a reason. An employer will almost never be willing to take the fall for a runner team they hired, and they'll almost never even help them hide. If the employer is a "power" themselves, the "almost never" becomes "never". If a competent runner team is able to hide from retribution when hired by someone, they should be equally good at it when working for themselves. Cross the mob/corps/dragons and they'll hunt you, sure, but they won't be any more able to find you than they were the last 50 times you crossed one of them on behalf of some power or other.
You're forgetting scale, Bira. Those powers react differently to a gnat that's bothering them than they do to someone who tries to hurt them personally. If you're working for someone, they'll tend to go after the one moving the pawns, but you can't count on them not trying to find you to send a message to the runner community. If you're working for yourself, though, then they have more incentive to see to you personally, or else they appear weak.
Let's take the Ghost Cartels example again, where a top Yakuza boss is assassinated. The runners avoid retribution from that because they frame someone else for the murder. Okay, that's valid. Now let's say that, instead of being hired by someone to do this, they decide to kill the gangster because one of the PCs had their family killed by him years ago. The rest of the group goes along because they got his back. No one hires them to do this. They make a sound plan, get the boss when he's vulnerable, pin the deed on the Mafia, and lay low for a while in another city, just like they'd do in the "for-hire" run. In my mind, they should be just as able to get away with their personal vendetta as they would with a normal run.
If the team is willing to lay out the resources that the team that did that Yak hit did (which included top shelf new identities in another city for the entire team courtesy of the Johnson), then yes, they should be able to get away with it. Of course, they wouldn't be getting paid for that run, and would have to shell out for all the gear and such out of their own pockets. And there's the fact that the Yaks eventually caught on that the Mafia didn't do it, and turned their attention to blasting the people responsible for the pawns. If you are on your own, then that means that when they figure out it wasn't the Mafia, they'll be looking for you.
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I'm sorry, did you miss Harley's always-present defenses that I posted? And that's nothing compared to the Dragons.
I chalk those up to "authorial protection", where "author" here can just as easily mean "the GM of that campaign". I might have missed you quoting the source of those numbers, but to me it seems they were written by starting from the conclusion that "Harlequin is invincible" and working backwards to a set of numbers that seemed sufficiently high to justify that.
Should have mentioned the source: Street Legends.
This does mean that what I quoted is canon, not something plucked out of a story made by whatever GM.
Now I'm not saying that if you decide to put Harley in your game, you`re forced to use those stats... but I am saying that in the SR setting anno 2074 this is pretty much how powerful you can expect him to be.
If you want him or others like him to be weaker, by all means, go ahead. But to me it seems like you're underestimating how much power and knowledge these figures have amassed.
As for 'runners doing 'runs without being hired, of course it's a possibility and they'd be just as good as when they were hired. Heck, probably better considering they have personal motivation to pull it off.
But when all's said and done, their target will look at what happened and ask questions.
In a normal run this would be something like: What happened? -> How did this happen? -> Who did this? -> Who hired these people? -> How do I get even to the people who paid for this?
On a personal run, it'll be: What happened? -> How did this happen? -> Who did this? -> What do you mean they appear to have done this for themselves?! -> How do I get even to them?
Difference there is that you made your team to stop being a pawn and be a player instead. And everyone knows that taking out a pawn is just a small thing, but knocking out a player wins you the game.
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xactly. How does pride help you against somebody who was able to survive millenia...
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xactly. How does pride help you against somebody who was able to survive millenia...
Pride goeth before a... ;D
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Here's the way I look at it when it comes to the IE's and Great Dragons. They aren't NPC's. They are setting. They are the same as the cities you run in. Yes, you interact with both, in different ways, but it comes down to what it would take to destroy them. It would take about as much to kill a Great or IE as it would to destroy a good sized neighborhood. And when it boils down to it, whether you blew up a Great or a section of the Barrens, the question is, why would you want the attention either action would bring?
No one is measuring genital size here. Why tear up a portion of the setting just because you can? And if you don't think there will be SERIOUS backlash from killing a Great, you aren't paying much attention to the setting as a whole. If a team of Shadowrunners can take down a Great Dragon or Immortal Elf with some fancy toys and a lot of planning, that means EVERY team can take them down with the same toys and proper planning. At least, as far as these setting pieces will see it. Which means it is now in their best interest to make sure whoever did it is publicly caught, tortured, and probably eaten. Shadowrun is NOT DnD. You don't wander into a dragon's lair, and slay him. Because he has resources you can't match, and the willingness to use those resources for his own well-being. He also has peers that have a healthy sense of self-interest. Just treat the IE's and Greats like talking setting pieces, and smack the hell out of any PC's that get uppity enough to try shooting them.
On another note, if you have access to the Thor Shot to take down a Great, then what are you doing running the shadows, when you have a Megacorp to run.
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Don't piss off a city. When it hits you, you find out just hard the streets really are.
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Here's the way I look at it when it comes to the IE's and Great Dragons. They aren't NPC's. They are setting. They are the same as the cities you run in. Yes, you interact with both, in different ways, but it comes down to what it would take to destroy them. It would take about as much to kill a Great or IE as it would to destroy a good sized neighborhood.
Y'know, that's pretty well said.
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Here's the way I look at it when it comes to the IE's and Great Dragons. They aren't NPC's. They are setting. They are the same as the cities you run in. Yes, you interact with both, in different ways, but it comes down to what it would take to destroy them. It would take about as much to kill a Great or IE as it would to destroy a good sized neighborhood.
Y'know, that's pretty well said.
I have to agree.
+1 to Lacynth, I do believe.
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May seem like an odd question but does Ghostwalker assume his metahuman form? I have the impression he's too 'dragon' for that
If so where would i find a description of it?
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May seem like an odd question but does Ghostwalker assume his metahuman form? I have the impression he's too 'dragon' for that
If so where would i find a description of it?
Hmm... He does seem the kind to say "Bitch, I'm a dragon. Go on with that metahuman form crap." But, he also doesn't seem the kind of dragon to waste an opportunity to gain the upper hand. So, he probably does go metahuman, to get less attention than he normally would, but be grumpy about it the whole time. I think a couple of books have mentioned his metahuman form. I think one fiction bit somewhere did... I know it's out there somewhere...
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May seem like an odd question but does Ghostwalker assume his metahuman form? I have the impression he's too 'dragon' for that
If so where would i find a description of it?
Year of the Comet pg 71, when he attended the Denver Council meeting when they acquiesced to his assertion of control, although his metahuman form is not described. For that turn to Dragons of the Sixth World pg 60, where his (known) metahuman form is described as, quote "Tall male human with white hair" unquote.
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May seem like an odd question but does Ghostwalker assume his metahuman form? I have the impression he's too 'dragon' for that
He's also the type to never give up an advantage. And being underestimated is a huge one.
Also, he'd Dunkie's Brother, and you better damned well bet he's playing off that by looking a lot like Dunkie did in Metahuman form during his election campaign. "You know, I can see the family resemblance. You're a bit taller, however." "An inch over that pissant Lincoln." ;D
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Here's the way I look at it when it comes to the IE's and Great Dragons. They aren't NPC's. They are setting. They are the same as the cities you run in. Yes, you interact with both, in different ways, but it comes down to what it would take to destroy them. It would take about as much to kill a Great or IE as it would to destroy a good sized neighborhood.
Y'know, that's pretty well said.
I have to agree.
+1 to Lacynth, I do believe.
Agreed. Another +1 from me.
May seem like an odd question but does Ghostwalker assume his metahuman form? I have the impression he's too 'dragon' for that
If so where would i find a description of it?
Hmm... He does seem the kind to say "Bitch, I'm a dragon. Go on with that metahuman form crap." But, he also doesn't seem the kind of dragon to waste an opportunity to gain the upper hand. So, he probably does go metahuman, to get less attention than he normally would, but be grumpy about it the whole time. I think a couple of books have mentioned his metahuman form. I think one fiction bit somewhere did... I know it's out there somewhere...
Many of the Greats dislike wearing their metahuman forms, but the only ones that would really resist using the guise except in special circumstances would be Sirrurg, Alamais, and the Sea Dragon, IMHO. The Sea Dragon is concerned mostly with the world beneath the waves, so she doesn't usually bother with the world above. Sirrurg is in the middle of his war, but a metahuman form is definitely a useful thing for slipping in with his troops. Alamais is a dragon supremacist, and only bothers with the metahuman form if he doesn't want his brother to know what he's doing for another few minutes.