 Seriously Pissed Off Yaks, What is the runner team in for? |
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 Jan 30 2008, 02:43 PM
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#226
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Freelance Elf  Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 7,324 Joined: 30-September 04 From: Texas Member No.: 6,714  |
His meteoric rise is also often decried as one of the lamest and least canonical of the recent plot devices, and he failed and got his ass killed in the long run, so I can't help but wonder why people are pointing to it and saying "See? Shadowrunners can take down the Yakuza!"
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Jan 30 2008, 02:56 PM
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#227
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Canon Companion Group: Members Posts: 8,021 Joined: 2-March 03 From: The Morgue, Singapore LTG Member No.: 4,187 |
It does not. The yakuza is calling on favors/cashing in favors from MCT, while the yakuza has MCT connections, there's only so far that the MCT will be willing to provide support for the yakuza. In fact, the MCT need not support this particular yakuza at all, when it can let it die and have another yakuza clan supplant it in the city. Also MCT when you get down to it is far more effective as a defensive AAA, due to it having the best zero zones in canon(at least in shadowtalk) than an offensive one(which MCT tends to use yakuza as its offense). Therefore, IMO, even if MCT is unable to stop the destruction of its surrogate yakuzas, it can stop the runners from destroying itself due to its superior Zero Zone defenses. |
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Jan 30 2008, 03:01 PM
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#228
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Canon Companion Group: Members Posts: 8,021 Joined: 2-March 03 From: The Morgue, Singapore LTG Member No.: 4,187 |
He did not fail. Novatech the AAA corp as an independent entity is no more(which is why Mr Villiers is so pissed). IMO, he suceeded in his objective. He died. But as I recall, the runners are also willing to die. So I can't help but wonder why people are pointing to it and saying "See? Shadowrunners cannot take down the yakuza!" Difficult, yes. Certainly fatal. But when survival is not part of the mission requirements or part of the mission objective, then fatalities is not cause for mission failure. |
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Jan 30 2008, 03:02 PM
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#229
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,328 Joined: 28-November 05 From: Zuerich Member No.: 8,014 |
If you think zero zones are what keeps shadowrunners from destroying a triple-A corp, and that MCT is unable to protect its own yakuzas against a shadowrunner team, then we are talking about very, very different games. |
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Jan 30 2008, 03:07 PM
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#230
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Canon Companion Group: Members Posts: 8,021 Joined: 2-March 03 From: The Morgue, Singapore LTG Member No.: 4,187 |
Indeed we are. However as I see it, my game is as close to canon as I can make it, without official writer/developer input. In order for this(shadowrunners destroying a AAA) to happen however, the runners have to consistently be able to defeat canon Professional Rating 5. Whereas the runners have to consistently defeat Professional Rating 4, until MCT see fit to deploy elite MCT troops to guard its subsidiaries assets. |
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Jan 30 2008, 03:26 PM
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#231
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,180 Joined: 22-January 07 From: Rochester, NY Member No.: 10,737 |
As a friend commented to me, this thread has turned into in an interesting combination of tennis and Pin-The-Tail-On-The-Donkey.
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Jan 30 2008, 03:29 PM
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#232
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Awakened Asset Group: Members Posts: 4,464 Joined: 9-April 05 From: AGS, North German League Member No.: 7,309 |
Art got that ultimate windfall as help. And still failed to destroy Novatech in all but the name. And died for it. Great victory, that. Destroying the kumi in name is something the runners can achive. Terminate the current leadership, someone else will take over. The new oyabun will know who killed his predecessor, so the PCs should end the conflict at that point. Those who survived, that is. I think from canon we can agree that any oyabun is prepared for an all-out seoulpa attack. My group would not like the thought of attacking the Green Serpent Guard... Yet depending on the group, it can be done if fatalities are accepted. |
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Jan 30 2008, 04:41 PM
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#233
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
that's ridiculous. at best, Art was a factor in forcing Novatech to go public, which was a factor in its ultimate demise. by that logic, yeah, sure, maybe the runners will take out the one Yak who could have saved his clan from some upcoming act of god that has nothing to do with the runners. victoly!
yes, because by canon, the Yaks can't possibly field enough shooters to make professional rating largely irrelevant. oh, right, forgot--the runners magically know everything about the Yaks, and can therefore automatically avoid any situation where the Yaks could concentrate that many soldiers in one place. my bad. |
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Jan 30 2008, 06:01 PM
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#234
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,590 Joined: 11-September 04 Member No.: 6,650 |
I think that you will find by reading the end of System Failure. You will find that Mr Richard Villiers disputes your interpretation and as you said the heads of the major organisations are far more knowledgable than standard individuals like you and me |
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Jan 30 2008, 10:16 PM
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#235
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
Art got lucky. it's like punching a guy, and the guy stumbling back into a train that neither of you saw coming down the track. yeah, you killed the guy, but it's not like punching people is always going to have that effect, and it's not like you can take the credit for having a lethal punch. Villiers was put out, but his company went on to gain even more power. yeah, Art punched way above his weight class, but if it hadn't been for a lot other factors, his lucky shot wouldn't have had much effect.
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Jan 30 2008, 11:12 PM
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#236
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 640 Joined: 8-October 07 Member No.: 13,611 |
Really? I was thinking the same thing about you. See, why Villiers is pissed is because he made a bad deal. Shortly after Crash 2.0, everything was coming up Milhouse for him. Then he sees what Transys-Erika has, and that THEY are the future. Being the corporate raider he is, he figures "Oh, this is too good to pass up." But as he was buying Transys, Celedyr was taking control of that corp and becoming its primary shareholder, and thus one of NeoNET's largest shareholders at the same time that Samantha Villiers was hamstringing her ex-husband from behind. So in the end, his overconfidence got him stuck in a bad place. But it wasn't for desperation that it came to this. On November 2, 2064 he was on top of the world, and hardly fighting for his life. |
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Jan 31 2008, 01:28 AM
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#237
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,590 Joined: 11-September 04 Member No.: 6,650 |
Don't be so fast to put things down to Luck. Art spent considerable time practicing and learning how to dismantle and destroy large corporate systems. While He was killed,. he did enough damage to Novatech to force them to appeal to the Corporate court to help. Even then, before he died he had forced the financial position of Novatech so far down that they were forced to sell stock, (making a private megacorp go public is a serious piece of damage) This had forever weakened Novatech, the crash just poured salt onto the wound. Then, as you stated, Villiers fell back on his raider tactics and went into Mergers to survive. These mergers strengthened his position. Even after all the gains from the mergers, The best Villiers could get was the same situation he hated back in the '50s Not all fo that was luck The crash made it worse. but Art had already dealt a major blow, he made Novatech vulnerable to the likes of Villiers and Knight. This could be seen as intentional, because he had learned from his Miami run, when a corp is past a certain size the best chance is to tear open a bunch of bleeding wounds and get the attnetion of the piranhas and sharks. |
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Jan 31 2008, 01:49 AM
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#238
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
don't attribute too much to luck? for god's sake, he inherited millions of dollars from a dragon. and at the perfect moment, just when Art had shoved Novatech as hard as he possibly could, the entire world changed, and because of Art's--or, rather Dunk's--timing, Novatech had to change with it. so, ok, let's not put it down to luck--let's put it down to Dunk planned for it to happen. luck, draconic manipulation, fate--the guy had help, and he still didn't do more than seriously inconvenience Novatech.
and let's not forget the fact that Novatech didn't die. it got bigger and richer. Villiers responded to Art's machinations by, yes, asking for help--and using that help to not only wipe out Art, but to pull Novatech up the ladder. so, yes, the runners might prick the Yaks. and the Yaks, like Novatech, might respond by getting some help from higher up--help that puts them in debt, that inconveniences them. and then would come the crushening, during which the runners would be crushed. |
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Jan 31 2008, 02:23 AM
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#239
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Canon Companion Group: Members Posts: 8,021 Joined: 2-March 03 From: The Morgue, Singapore LTG Member No.: 4,187 |
Yes, that is true. I applaud you for admitting it. |
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Jan 31 2008, 05:20 AM
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#240
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 640 Joined: 8-October 07 Member No.: 13,611 |
The Corporate Court didn't intervene because it was affecting Novatech.
It intervened because Art's actions were directly harming ALL of the Big Ten. And when that happens, the perpetrator gets curb-stomped. Dankwalther is a deus ex machina. He turned 34 billion (pre-tax) dollars, which becomes 6 to 8.5 billion nuyen depending on the exchange rate minus like 40% of that in taxes into "trillions" of nuyen in a manner of two years or so. And yet taking on Gunderson nearly wiped him out and did not totally annihilate the corp. He is the embodiment of a walking plot device, and the most damage he ever did was taking out the epoxy factories, which unlike the Secret Yak Headquarters is going to be public knowledge and something that can be found when you're throwing around billions of nuyen. Besides that, the IPO took nearly a year. If Novatech was hurting that badly, it wouldn't have even survived to November. But you seem dead set in believing otherwise, which is fine. Wrong. But fine. In this instance, it's comparing a catamaran to an aircraft carrier. He had assets to counter what Novatech could throw at him that the runners don't when being hunted down by the Yaks: money (to counter-bribe, equip and operate), time, and a mind that was capable of blowing Damien Knight and Richard Villiers out of the water in terms of making money. It's the sigma six outlier of lucky, clever investors--someone who takes a large fortune, and turns it into fortune bigger than most GDPs, and then invests every bit of it into one project. |
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Jan 31 2008, 06:14 AM
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#241
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Freelance Elf Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 7,324 Joined: 30-September 04 From: Texas Member No.: 6,714 |
Hey, just curious (still), but no one's answered my question yet. Sorry to take away from the whole Art conversation (enthralling as it is), but...
If 4-5 Shadowrunners can destroy Seattle's Yakuza so easily, how does organized crime exist in your game worlds? |
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Jan 31 2008, 06:30 AM
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#242
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Cybernetic Blood Mage Group: Members Posts: 3,472 Joined: 11-March 06 From: Northeastern Wyoming Member No.: 8,361 |
My answer would be that it couldn't, but then again I'm on the side of the Yaks turning the Runners into meat-puppets for Bubba the Love Troll. :cyber:
However, if I were looking at things from the other side I think I'd say that Big Crime can exist because the perfect storm of a bunch of extremely dangerous people with nothing to lose is very, very rare even in the Sixth World. |
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Jan 31 2008, 07:22 AM
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#243
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Canon Companion Group: Members Posts: 8,021 Joined: 2-March 03 From: The Morgue, Singapore LTG Member No.: 4,187 |
If 4-5 shadowrunners can destroy a city's local yakuza by paying their lives, how does organized crime exist in your game worlds? Answer: Simple. Organised Crime is not usually not stupid enough to force shadowrunners into a corner and shadowrunners are usually not suicidal. |
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Jan 31 2008, 08:52 AM
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#244
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Shadow Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 3,737 Joined: 2-June 06 From: Secret Tunnels under the UK (South West) Member No.: 8,636 |
Beat me to it. I'd also add to "willing to pay with their lives" willing to pay with other people's too. Someone that truly has nothing to lose, or rather thinks they don't, is not so common. It's particularly uncommon amongst people who are talented and well-resourced. It is especially uncommon to find this attitude present in an entire group of friends. It usually only happens with PCs. As regards this:
Payback is actually fairly realistic. There's some strokes of luck and Lucy Liu's character is a PC, but it's all well-thought out and certainly within the bounds of realism of Shadowrun. As to the Yaks being a paramilitary force... well, my point all along has been that the ability to blow other people up does not prevent you from being blown up yourself. I think the Yaks can't be toppled by PCs position has stemmed from GMs deciding a priori that the Yaks Status Quo should not be affected by the PCs and justifying from there. |
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Jan 31 2008, 09:35 AM
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#245
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
dude, my argument with you ended two pages ago, when you admitted that the only way the PCs could succeed would be the GM letting them. beyond that, i'm really not sure what your stance is; cute, zero-content responses don't really help clarify anything.
that is patently ridiculous. OC is in the business of fucking people over. that's the entire basis of their every operation--fucking people over and getting away with it. you two are seriously going to sit there and try to say that in forty years of violent, chaotic Seattle OC history, no syndicate has ever fucked over a group of talented runners? piss them off so badly that the runners decided to go kamikaze? through all the struggles, through all the chaos and shifting factions, through all the betrayals, all the OC syndicates just... what, got lucky? dodged a bullet? walked around on tippy-toes when it came to betraying runners, in a setting where some Johnsons consider it SOP to betray runners? and it's not like OC syndicates only come stocked with mooks. there are highly-talented people working for OCs, sometimes even in teams. how, then, can OC possibly exist, since it is inevitable that some of these highly-talented individuals will find their lives shattered by an enemy syndicate? and it is also inevitable that some of those whose lives are shattered will take it upon themselves to do anything to destroy the offending syndicate, yea even unto their own deaths? hell, don't you remember Mob War? James O'Malley dedicated decades to destroying the Seattle Yaks, fueled by the murder of his brother, and he couldn't pull it off. OC interactions can be generally described as a series of vendettas, and yet very few of these vendettas actually amount to anything. why would a bunch of jokers with no real inroads, no friends, lots of extra enemies, and very little information fare any better than a man who dedicated his entire life to the same goal? hell, why didn't the Seoulpa rings succeed? those guys are--or were, i'm given to understand--basically just groups of runners who really, really want to kill Yaks. how come they couldn't pull it off? just didn't get mad enough, i guess?
it's more realistic than, say, Commando, but there's still a million ways a competently-run syndicate could have taken care of Mel. he didn't get lucky, he got the power of plot. PCs in my games, at least, don't get that benefit. you're usually a pretty level guy; it's very surprising to me that you're such a sucker for Hollywood in this particular regard. |
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Jan 31 2008, 10:10 AM
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#246
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Canon Companion Group: Members Posts: 8,021 Joined: 2-March 03 From: The Morgue, Singapore LTG Member No.: 4,187 |
My admission is the simple statement of fact that any PC or PC group succeeding in any endeavour requires the GM allowing them to. It does not only apply in this situation and is a non-factor since GM fiat is so wildly different that only canon should apply and as far as I am concerned, that post of yours only serves to reinforce my point and I thanked you for admitting I am right. And shadowrunners are in the business of fucking with people who fuck people over. That is the very basis of shadowrunning - fucking with the fuckers and getting away with it. Generic canon OC syndicates come stocked only with mooks and a certain NPC which can use certain Prime Runner rules - which is precisely the point I was making. James O'Malley(canon Named NPC - canon Ultimate NPC since no stats published) was trying to destroy canon Named Seattle Yakuza clans(with a canon Ultimate NPC leader, no stats published). Also one of the canon reasons why we are playing SR4 instead of SR3 is due to a group of suicidal lunatics and their equally fanatical allies. Why would a bunch of talented, resourceful and now suicidal professionals which presumably used to work all sides against the middle fare worse against a generic yakuza clan? |
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Jan 31 2008, 06:56 PM
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#247
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Deus Absconditus Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,742 Joined: 1-September 03 From: Downtown Seattle, UCAS Member No.: 5,566 |
I agree with you that the Yakuza would be hard to kill, MFB. I agree that it would be unlikely that runners would succeed. But recognize you're making certain arguments that aren't quite germaine, and you've made one leap of logic. The biggest difference between O'Malley & the Seoulpa Rings, vs our hypothetical group of nothing-to-lose-mercenaries is that both O'Malley and the Rings wanted to beat the crap out of the yaks while staying alive and coming out on top of the OC dog pile. That's a HUGE difference. That's the difference between going, "Okay, I won't fire bomb that block because they'll kill my cousin if I do that... I'll spend some time undermining their assets and stealing their money" or saying, "Fuck it, let loose the goddamn napalm. They can't hurt me any more than they have, and I've got nothing left for them to destroy." O'Malley wanted to kill the Yakuza, sure, but he wanted to be in charge of a working Mafia family more.
What evidence do you have that they didn't? What evidence do you have that the runners didn't totally slaughter a yakuza family? Hell, maybe that's how the breakaway radical faction of Yakuza gained power in the first place - the old guard tried to play hardball and got wasted. I'm not saying it DID happen, I'm just saying that OC history is a sketchy outline at best, with the exception of Mob War. Yes, it would be hard for a runner team to permanently incapacitate a syndicate. But come on, man. You mean to tell me that a team of well-armed, well-trained psychopaths with nothing to lose couldn't seriously damage a syndicate under any circumstances? |
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Jan 31 2008, 10:02 PM
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#248
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
the whole point of this discussion to to figure out what the GM should be fiating. using only canon NPCs is also GM fiat; your argument is that we should arbitrarily use your GM fiat instead of anyone else's. my argument is that we should use GM fiat that makes sense within the context of the rules and the setting.
yes, shadowrunners fuck over other fuckers--one fucker at a time. runners only have to worry about winning one battle at any given time, whereas OC syndicates have to worry about both winning battles and winning the war. in this case, the runners are entering a new playing field--instead of winning one battle and then disappearing, they're actually trying to win a war. winning wars is something they don't have any real experience in. the runners, in this case, could win a bunch of battles but still end up losing because they won the wrong battles--they wasted their resources taking down targets that weren't important to the enemy. the Yaks, on the other hand, know all about that sort of thing, because it's what they do every day.
simple--the histories of the Seattle OC syndicates are spelled out fairly explicitly, and none of them mention any such thing. we already know how the breakaway radical faction of the Yakuza--that would be the Shotozumi-rengo--got their start.
to an extent. the thing is, you're thinking in terms of "willing to die" versus "not willing to die", and i'm thinking in terms of total effectiveness--in which willingess to die is a factor. toturi and knasser, as best i can tell, think that willingess to die multiplies your effectiveness by infinity. i believe that willingness to die, in combination with other attributes and assets, can multiply your effectiveness by a lot--the total of which is still less than what an OC syndicate can bring to bear. regardless, let's not forget the other part of that paragraph. OC syndicates, in addition to their mooks, have personally powerful members. i know toturi will deny their existence, because they're not statted, but for everyone else--what's the likelihood that some of these personally powerful members won't have, at some point, lost so much to an enemy OC syndicate that they decide they have nothing left to lose? given their existence and given the apparently infinite power that willingness to die gives a person, why aren't the OCs blowing each other up every other week? it's interesting that the only direct response i saw to Fuch's question (whether or not a runner team could take out a megacorp, if they were willing to die for it) was toturi's usual blind obeisance to his interpretation of canon. everyone else avoided the question. |
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Jan 31 2008, 11:12 PM
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#249
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 640 Joined: 8-October 07 Member No.: 13,611 |
I have Yakuza (and Mafia and Vory and even an Ancients) company men teams that are as good or better than my group's PCs. But I'm not handicapping the GM or being handicapped as one by insisting that if there are no stats it doesn't exist.
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Jan 31 2008, 11:23 PM
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#250
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,537 Joined: 27-August 06 From: Albuquerque NM Member No.: 9,234 |
The British troops on the first day of the Somme were also willing to die to accomplish their mission. And die they did. Accomplishing their mission, not so much. Being willing to die does not give you the ability to not be turned into beef flambe when someone who is willing to kill you hits your car with an ATGM. |
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