jack point is awefully small Options

[fool]

I just got the new magic book and the Runners havens and one thing I noticed is that the variety of characters posting on jackpoint is very small. Most of the characters in sm appeared in rh and most of the posts in both books were done by about a score characters.
One of the things I liked about the old shadowland was the variety of posters giving a wide variety of perspective. Everyone from hard core sammies to luddite mages.
Anyone got an idea if this going to continue in other books or will we see more faces?

[Jaid]

i imagine a lot of the old group kinda died off in the crash. also, i wouldn't be too surprised if we see a lot less variety... it mentions in there somewhere that only people with a certain level of reputation can vouch for newcomers... presumably the rep system can be used in other ways to.

perhaps they're just indicating that only people who have a certain degree of reliability are allowed to post to the files or something ;)

or maybe fastjack is supposed to have been deleting a lot of useless "me too" and "i agree" posts...

that being said, even in the older books a lot of the posts come from relatively few people. just give it more time though, and i'm sure some new talent will get added in.

[Slithery D]

I think they wanted a smaller list of standard commentators, with less one shot comments by guys with names boringly/ridiculously apropos the subject they were doing a drive by on. There's a shadowtalk pdf somewhere with the list and description of the new "approved" people for sourcebook commentary. Few of them are mages, which is why you saw only (some of) them in SM.

[eidolon]

I dunno. I always took the whole "name fits the subject" as indication that there are so many people on the matrix that there are people with those names, and that they surf for topics related to their interests to post to. It certainly never bothered me.

[2bit]

it's a well known fact that shadowrunners are notorious lurkers ;)

[Samaels Ghost]

One of the freelancers said that trying to keep each poster's interests straight and consistent was hard. The list of names used was enormous.

How many peoples' screen names actually reflect such obvious interests? The references are usually far more vague.

Is Jaid a reference to that person's real name, a nickname, a favorite character in a movie or game? Who knows? I don't. Shadowrunners will most likely be less revealing than even we are. They are wanted criminals. Giving out too much info can be dangerous.

[eidolon]

Got it: "It's hard and we don't wanna." I can see how it would be difficult if nobody had thought in the beginning to keep a list and their linked "interests".

As long as they're honest.

The rest of that is just justification to make it sound reasonable. I could easily say "it doesn't matter if they keep it consistant, because who knows how many people have the same user name, or how often one account is changed/deleted/renamed" etc.

[Dogsoup]

[Demonseed Elite]

[Samaels Ghost]

There we go. That's pretty much what I remember hearing before. Someone mentioned it sucked to keep track of and he even had some funky flowcharts or something. Soundss like a pain in the ass and I would rather they focus on other things rather than how exactly Jackpoint works. My characters won't ever encounter it. It doesn't have to make sense, I bought the books for the nifty source materials and new abilities, not Jackpoint.

[eidolon]

@ Demonseed,

I hear you. I can see why you'd be frustrated.

Personally though, I don't think the "one-shot" type shadowtalkers are even worth tracking for consistency. If they're only jumping in every once in a while, and they aren't a major player or main character, then what's the point? You're not getting enough of them to "track" their personality, etc. (as a reader), so nearly anything you use them for is cool. The main guys (Fastjack, etc.) are prominent and post often enough to track and maintain, but since there are fewer of them it's not as big a job.

I don't know. I guess as a reader, I'd rather have the rabble posting all over the place, because it seems more realistic. But then, these are just theoretical ponderings at this point, because I don't play SR4 and am only likely to buy books that are super-fluff and null-rules.

[Demonseed Elite]

I agree that it's not important to track one-shots, but we were discouraged from using one-shots. So as we tried to repeat-use existing shadowtalkers from past books, we had to check past books to make sure we were consistent (did this shadowtalker die along the way, did he mention he works out of a particular city, is he an elf, etc.).

The change was largely a top-down decision, though, as most of these major format decisions are. The freelancers are asked for feedback, but when something this big comes down, it's usually pretty much decided.

[Jaid]

mind you, it seems even some of the regulars disappeared too... i mean, obviously the big D doesn't post anymore, for obvious reasons, but others just seem to have disappeared with no explanation (possibly the crash, i suppose). mind you, i haven't looked up system failure either... maybe it explains where some of them went.

for example, i don't think i've seen anything from the chromed accountant since the new edition. maybe he just hasn't had anything to say yet, i suppose, but still. same thing with pyramid watcher. (i may be getting the names a little off... maybe i should look in some of the older books to double check... but those should be pretty close to accurate...)

in any event, it would be kinda neat to see a list of what happened to all the folks who disappeared.

[Demonseed Elite]

Not all of the old regulars frequent Jackpoint, but some may make reappearances in the future as books cover topics they are knowledgeable in.

[Slithery D]

I demand Rabid in the critter book! I was pleased to see him return from a long hiatus in SoA. Of course, he was less interesting than before, but I'll take what I can get.

[FrankTrollman]

Remember also that the readers don't generally even have flowcharts to dedicate to these characters, so keeping track of a 100+ person cast is not something that we can expect the average shadowrun player to do.

So while I really like some of the stories that played out - like the death of Matador and the takeover of the operation by Picador - a lot of others just didn't make any impression. What's the story behind Carpenter? I don't even know.

And that's the deal. There are only so many stories that can be told in any book, and since there are a finite number of books that will be written for SR4, there are only so many characters that SR4 can ever really do justice to. So the decision was to make a solid guess as to how many that was going to be and then focus all the stories on those guys.

And that's why you have Jimmy No giving people a walking tour of Hong Kong for Shadowrunners and Mercenaries in Runner Havens and working as a mercenary himself in New Guinea in Street Magic. You can get a fair grasp of what he's up to by following him through those books.

Now, it's entirely possible that they guessed too small as to how many characters they ould cover. But that's OK, because the format allows them to easily introduce new characters by announcing that a new character has joined Jackpoint.

Maybe old characters can make a reappearance, mabe new characters can tell us what happened to the old ones.

-Frank

[SL James]

[Jaid]

[Demonseed Elite]

I hope I'm not killing anyone's impressions when I say that even the freelancers often don't know what is up with these old shadowtalkers. Really, when it came to SR3 shadowtalkers, there was never really a plan, things just sort of happened. So if someone disappeared, we probably don't even know why until we feel a need to come up with something. :P

If there is one single thing I miss from the old system, it was being able to put people from Dumpshock, Shadowland, and other sites in as cameo appearances. I thought that was a nice touch and a tip of the hat to the fan community.

[mfb]

i'd personally like to see a mix of both. the small core of shadowtalkers is a nice idea; it gives the freelancers known common ground to spin stories out of. but those core shadowtalkers should, i think, make up about 50% of the comments. it's a big, connected world, and the idea that less than 100 people are 'in' on the heart of the shadows is kinda silly. the other 50% should be made up of freelancer's one-shots.

[eidolon]

100% agreed with mfb. Well said.

[FrankTrollman]

One thing that can be done is to write articles for the in-character sections at the beginning of each chapter. A book like Street Magic has articles that are being commented upon, and those articles can be written by one-shot characters.

But yes, I miss the ability to throw in one-shot people. That was a nice way to give people props.

-Frank

[fool]

one of the things I really liked about the sr rule books was the hinted at back stories. I thought this played out really well with characters like orange queen and dragonslayer. I can't imagine that most everyone from the pevious editions died in the crash 2 (I've read system failure and it didn't seem to indicate that 95% of the peoploe died; and even if they had they'd be replaced by others.)
Yes having to have to track backstories on lots of different characters would be a pain in the ass, but remember one of Captain Chaos'es constant warning people may be posting stuff that they know is entirely untrue. So if someone says they're an elf, you take it with a grain of salt.
I find that most top down decisions are stupid. I guess I'd fit in better at Horizon than SK. I think that limiting the characters limits the stories that can be told; even if those stories are only a paragraph long, they still make a rich tapestry from which to draw ideas for campaigns. I know that at least a few runs that I gm'ed were spin offs from some comment someone made as a shadowtalker.

[Slithery D]

Let's all just admit that pretty much all shadowtalk post-Dowd/Finley sucked. There was no real perosnality or distinctive writing style attached to even most of the regulars.

[eidolon]