What's the purpose of Ghostwalker?, The wizzworm doing what? Options

[FrankTrollman]

friendly suggestion, ignore the troll. he seems to have a issue with SR4 that i cant quite nail down, but i suspect it had something with feeling ignored while working for them...

:Raises Hand:

Ghostwalker's Godzilla rampage is an SR3 event. That entire fiasco was set in motion not only before I worked there but before SR4 was even being written.

I am a raging cock and totally opinionated. But honestly saying that my lingering hate for the Ghost Stories chapter and the resultant lack of setting verisimilitude has anything to do with any issues I have with SR4 is entirely unsupportable. It's factually incorrect and wouldn't even be possible without a time machine.

-Frank

[Synner]

Feuerschwinge is a German dragon that was taken out by a small military division. Though it is uncertain if he was already hurt and they simply put the killing blow in, or if he was going toxic since he seems to have been in the SOX area. It is also unsure if he is truly dead, since there are since there are still sightings. Also there are mutant/toxic clans that worship him as a diety of destruction.

Feuerschwinge was/is a she. Also, you forgot the boyfriend. And the eggs/nest. And her hoard.

[martindv]

I'm going to murder someone at my ISP.

It is whining if someone makes some heated complaint without actually providing you know, facts or anything other than bitchiness. It's irrational when said complaints have no basis in reason. Especially when the complaints are predicated on reasons that the complainer is making up in their head.

And for the love of Christ it was not a Gozilla rampage. Unless Godzilla got a lot more focused and allied. I don't ever seem to recall Godzilla manipulating politics.

[Bull]

Wow. Some serious vitriol here.

To address the original poster a bit, I'll give you some quick background on how Ghostwalker came about.

I was lucky enough to be invited up to visit FASA a bunch of years back to participate on a little summit with a handful of freelancers to brainstorm ideas for Year of the Comet, and the stuff taht would follow that up. One thing that we realizzed very early in the process was that 2061, the Year of the Comet, would be the 50th anniversary of the Awakening.

To that end, we decided that it would be fun to use that oppurtunity to do some big stuff in the world of Shadowrun, and that it would be fun to mirror the original awakening to some extent.

The three main things that the original Awakening brought with it were Magic, Metahumans and Paracritters, and Dragons. So we had a temporary rise in the mana levels (Magic), some new Paranormal Animals and SURGE (Metas and Paras), and Ghostwalker fulfilled our role in the Dragion department.

Since we wanted to have a "new" dragon, we decided to look back at Earthdawn and find a dragon that hadn't been used in SR yet. Icewing, being Dunklezahn's brother, fit the bill. There was a lot of discussion about this, and in the end we were able to tie it into a whole pile of other stuff, so we ran with it.

Icewing has done a lot in Shadowrun, and almost all of it has involved shaking up the status quo. Which, IMO, is nota and thing in the least.

For one, he shook up Denver, which I personally always thought was something of a mediocre setting, at best. As I recall when FASA closed down, they found a full pallet or three of Denver Boxed sets in their warehouse, and I think there was a reason for that. Of course, the only place-book I've ever thought was worthwhile was Bug City, and that was less a Location book than it was a Campaignh and Story Setting.

And even if you were a big fan of Denver and ran your entire campaign out of there, he really didn't effect things all THAT much. The only real change is that Denver got a new Mayor, and one of the factions there was removed.

Ghostwalker was also the actalyst that brought about the Survival of the Fittest adventure set, which changed the dynamic among the Great Dragons.

Finally, while a couple folks dismissed it, I think it's really interesting to have a dragon that didn't try and aclimate himself in one way or another to the modern world, a "Fuedal Dragon", if you will.

<shrug> Ghostwalker is like a lot of things in the Shadowrun Universe. He's there, he's defined, but usually it's up to the GM and players to utilize him as they see fit. Using the same logic that applies to Ghostwalker, really, what purpose do 95% of the people, places, and things in SR really serve? It's a part of the setting, that's all.

Bull

[hobgoblin]

:Raises Hand:

Ghostwalker's Godzilla rampage is an SR3 event. That entire fiasco was set in motion not only before I worked there but before SR4 was even being written.

I am a raging cock and totally opinionated. But honestly saying that my lingering hate for the Ghost Stories chapter and the resultant lack of setting verisimilitude has anything to do with any issues I have with SR4 is entirely unsupportable. It's factually incorrect and wouldn't even be possible without a time machine.

-Frank

well oops on me...

[Fuchs]

Feuerschwinge was/is a she. Also, you forgot the boyfriend. And the eggs/nest. And her hoard.

I wish. Doesn't anyone consider that if something is done overly much it is usually not cool, entertaining or exciting anymore?

Too many great dragons around. Too many plots where they are involved. It is starting to remind me of the clichee view of the Forgotten Realms where every barkeeper is an archmage or polymorphed dragon.

Please cut their number down and give us more megacorp and organised crime intrigue, and less scales.

[FrankTrollman]

And for the love of Christ it was not a Gozilla rampage. Unless Godzilla got a lot more focused and allied.

Have you read Ghost Stories lately? I honestly am curious, because all that drek about Ghostwalker having allies happened after his Rampage. The section is actually called "Rampage in Denver". It's on page 59 of Year of the Comet. It's a news report of Ghost Walker personally and with no assistance boxing with the contents of an Aztechnology Teocali. Unfortunately, it's in conversational script format so the whole thing is really long and can't be copied in its entirety under fair use. But you can go read it yourself and stop making bullshit claims if you'd like. Or I can give you some highlights:

Frag, that was intense. This dragon began attacking the Aztec teocalli in the Aztlan sector several minutes ago. Ahortly after, a fleet of Aztechnology assault TADS drones were launched for a counterattack-what's happening now?
[Zoom in on three approaching aircraft; two Aztechnology Aguilar helicopters and one Halcon ground-attack aircraft.]

The spirit army doesn't show up until later. The CAS/UCAS alliance you keep talking about doesn't happen at all. The first thing that happens is Ghostwalker personally cock-slaps the entire town.

He then appeared over Denver in the Aztlan Sector, where he immediately engaged in an attack, completely destroying the Aztec teocalli and damaging the Aztechnology bilding. Next he headed into the CAS sector, where he engaged with the CAS border security, but broke off and disappeared.
...
After a three-day hiatus, Ghostwalker resurfaced over the UCAS sector. The destruction began anew as he singled out a high-rise residence and firebombed it.

Got that? He attacks all the major military powers in sequence over a period of several days and somehow manages to win despite having no allies and only his Unstoppable NPC Fiat powers to fall back on.

So having you whine about how we are whining when we talk about his Godzilla Rampage does your credibility no favors. It was a Godzilla Rampage. It was extremely ham handed, and it wasn't subtle or anything. It's an open question as to why he wasn't killed by mass drivers from all three factions.

-Frank

[Fuchs]

Ghostwalker was also the actalyst that brought about the Survival of the Fittest adventure set, which changed the dynamic among the Great Dragons.

Is that the adventure where so many complain about not having any choice as a player, and being forced around and railroaded into Dragon Service? Or the one that people tout whenever someone wants ungodly amounts of nuyen? I'd say that's a black mark against him, not for him.

Finally, while a couple folks dismissed it, I think it's really interesting to have a dragon that didn't try and aclimate himself in one way or another to the modern world, a "Fuedal Dragon", if you will.

It would be interesting, if he would get smacked down as such relics would be. But of course, he got plot protection.

<shrug> Ghostwalker is like a lot of things in the Shadowrun Universe. He's there, he's defined, but usually it's up to the GM and players to utilize him as they see fit. Using the same logic that applies to Ghostwalker, really, what purpose do 95% of the people, places, and things in SR really serve? It's a part of the setting, that's all.

And part of the setting I cut out in my campaign. In my campaign, feudal dragons end up dead in short order if they don't adjust.

[hobgoblin]

while denver was never a focus of mine (hell, i pay only slight attention to the meta-story overall) was there not something about denver being a demilitarized place?

[Fuchs]

Denver was demilitarised, which meant, all the powers simply reclassified their military units as security forces. It was Cold War Berlin on steroids, basically.

Now it's something out of Dark Sun, with computers added. But heck, if people who fed us all the "freedom" and "equality" drives in SR, with native people regaining their lands, and metahumans fighting against oppression see nothing wrong with the entire continent accepting some dragon as feudal overlord of a town, not much one can do but ignore it.

[Fortune]

Please cut their number down ...

I'll put my plea in for the opposite. I play Shadowrun partly because it has fantasy mixed with its cyberpunk. I'd like to keep it that way.

[Fuchs]

The Fantasy elements should at the very least adjust to cyberpunk, not the other way around.

[hobgoblin]

clash of cultures (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

plus ca change btw...

[Fortune]

The Fantasy elements should at the very least adjust to cyberpunk, not the other way around.

Why?

In Shadowrun there are fantasy elements that do adjust to the cyberpunk, and some that do the opposite. There are cyberpunk elements that bend toward the fantastic, and those that are pure Gibson. This makes it a much richer setting than the one dimentional world you are advocating.

[Fuchs]

If all you want is D&D with computers, i.e. where dragons can rampage around nilly-willy and all the modern tech and weapons are just window-dressing, and not in any way of consequence, then that's one dimensional.

I want a world where old fantasy tropes are changed by tech. Not where tech replaces the magic items of yore, but the setting doesn't change. Most fantasy worlds only work because there's no technological progress. SR is a world of progress, a world where advances in science and magic will challenge established "truths" each day. A world where anything is checked for possible reverse engineering, development, and industrial use.

A feudal dragon, IMHO, should be killed to keep the world believable - or at the very least, driven away to less civilised places unless it adapts to the sixth world.

[Cadmus]

Well as far as the cyber punk vs fantasy thing goes, ya know. I like the Idea of mages with grenade launchers. Sure you could kill that spirit with the spell...but the LMG with ADPS ammo just has more style to it, (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) As to ghost walker I feel he has his own style. as for the Military *cough* Secrity forces in solari...er Denver goes, Why he didn't get blown out of the sky? well their heavyer stuff has to stay out of the city for one acording to what i've read, as well. cas and ucas might not of liked the damage he did but they sure as hell wouldn't interfear once they saw him realy laying into the azzies after all. Also remember, Using logic to explain things in the history of shadow run. is the same as in battletech. which means its akin to Psychoanalyzing bugs bunny. Just don't and save the asprin (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Fortune]

If all you want is D&D with computers, i.e. where dragons can rampage around nilly-willy and all the modern tech and weapons are just window-dressing, and not in any way of consequence, then that's one dimensional.

You're right. Luckily, that isn't what I want, nor what I advocated. It's a good thing that most of the Shadowrun players I have met have more imagination than to see things in only that light. YMMV, of course.

[FrankTrollman]

I think it is important to note that it is seriously 7 minutes from the Austin military strip to the Denver DMZ by Movemented Banshee. If you escalate things to the point where you are hovering over Denver, blowing shit up for over ten minutes, then it's over. It's a military attack, it gets a military response. And the border army that Aztechnology has been confirmed to have is enough to slap down Ghostwalker from the skies.

Sure, Ghostwalker could do all kinds of running around in shadows, hiding behind concealment, and sabotaging things from extreme range with line of sight magic. But that's not what he did. He stood on top of the city of Denver and tore crap up with his claws. He spent long enough with 5 stars for the tanks to start showing up and he seriously could not have survived that.

-Frank

[Fuchs]

You're right. Luckily, that isn't what I want, nor what I advocated. It's a good thing that most of the Shadowrun players I have met have more imagination than to see things in only that light. YMMV, of course.

Imagination is a wonderful thing. It allows me to imagine other reasons for many things. It's just hard to see something else than a Dragon Rage out of D&D when reading about Denver since that's exactly what it was - a big bad scaly lizard flying in and teering stuff up.

Nothing about shadowy moves it made beforehand, sabotaged and duped military, black ops and shadowruns happening, etc. Just Godzilla coming to town.

Also, the RSEs, pardon the "changes to the staus quo" are getting tiresome. Is this the forgotten realms, where every second novel has to have a realm shattering event? Again, with the megacorps, and the information society, and so many links ebtween every important power, I'd prefer less earth shattering stuff, and more status quo - the shadowrunners, unless they are playing "DragonRunner" and "Megacorp Ruler", still have their hands full with runs for all sorts of powerlevel.

[hyzmarca]

There are billions of people in the world. In SR, a tiny handful of these people are ancient beings who could chain-cast GGD-level spells if they wanted to. We're talking dead-raising, continent-leveling stuff. The only thing that stops them from unleashing this power on each other during their petty squabbles, escalating what is essentially family bickering to an Extinction Level Event, is the fact that if they did so then a hoard of Clive Barker's wet dreams would eat all of our souls, their's included.

One of these extremely rare beings, possessing the element of surprise to accompany vastly superior (magical) firepower, can smash the fragmented and uncoordinated defenses of a sexpartite city. This is not a surprise.

Sure, Conquering Cold War Berlin would be damned near impossible for the East or the West. Both sides are expecting the other to attack at any moment. But what if the members of the Non-Aligned Movement suddenly started droping bombs and paratroopers onto the city? It would be a cluster-fuck for both because the men on the ground with have no fucking clue who not to shoot at and one misstep would escalate the conflict into Total Global Nuclear Annihilation faster than a horny rabbit can fuck. The result is relative paralysis, particularly since the worst consequences of not doing the right thing is that the city is lost to this new enemy while the best possible consequence of doing the wrong thing is that every living on the planet dies, with the exception of certain radio-immunologically robust insects who will soon starve to death.

The one thing you don't want when a dragon is destroying a city like Denver or Berlin when you are a major power is for the other major power(s) to think that it's your dragon. This is the one thing worse than it actually being the another power's dragon. If you start lobbing naval-scale weaponry (or WMDs) at this dragon then there is a non-zero chance that your esteemed comrades on the other side(s) of the curtain(s) will mistakingly think that you are lobbing naval-scale weaponry at them. We all know why this is bad, right? There is a reason why we didn't fight over Berlin. It wasn't because we didn't want the whole city - both sides did - and it certainly isn't because we didn't think that we could win - both sides did - it was because we knew that in the extremely unlikely event that a hot war escalated into a nuclear war, victory would by pointless and we also knew that the only way to prevent Global TNA in the event of an escalation was for one side to nuke the other so fast and so completely that it is unable to retaliate and they knew it too and both sides knew that the other side knew and and knew that the other side knew that they knew it, therefore the only possibly successful strategy was an unchangeable policy of nuclear first strike in the event of a hot war both to prevent the other side from escalating it into a nuclear war. This strategy would, of course, be implemented by both sides, ensuring that any escalation instantly becomes Global TNA thus the only winning strategy is to not fight at all.
And, thus, when attacked by an (apparently) outside party the safest strategy is to retreat, gather intel, assess without engaging, and make damned sure that everyone else knows that the attackers aren't yours.


And, yeah, Ghostwalker is a baddass. And he knows how to use Shock and Awe. He is an army unto himself, as any character of his stature should be. Would it be more acceptable if he was a giant cyborg crafted from the remains of dead cyborgs that constantly grafts new meat and metal to itself, essentially becoming bigger and more durable for every cybernetic corpse it adds to its structure?


I'm sort of reminded of The Destroy #101: Bidding War, in which South Korean troops storm past the American forces on the DMZ and invade North Korea. Forces on both sides of the DMZ were so dumbfounded that the South Korean invaders rolled right on through with no resistance.

[Maelwys]

Icewing has done a lot in Shadowrun, and almost all of it has involved shaking up the status quo. Which, IMO, is nota and thing in the least.

For one, he shook up Denver, which I personally always thought was something of a mediocre setting, at best. As I recall when FASA closed down, they found a full pallet or three of Denver Boxed sets in their warehouse, and I think there was a reason for that. Of course, the only place-book I've ever thought was worthwhile was Bug City, and that was less a Location book than it was a Campaignh and Story Setting.

And even if you were a big fan of Denver and ran your entire campaign out of there, he really didn't effect things all THAT much. The only real change is that Denver got a new Mayor, and one of the factions there was removed.

Charcoalgrin would've been a better Dragon, fwiw.

How can you say that "he shook up Denver" then turn around and say that he didn't really effect things that much, getting only a new Mayor and the Azzies out? You say that it was a mediocre setting, and all that really changed was that now it has a Dragon. Isn't that simply justifying the "Its a Dragon so its cool!" complaint?

"It was boring...now its exactly the same, but it has a Dragon so its cool!"

Actually, thinking about it, Charcoalgrin would've been a much better Dragon to bring in for a variety of reasons.

[Fuchs]

Yeah, that's what I hate: A modern world completely run by relics from the fatansy world. Not in my campaign. In my campaign, megacorps run the world, and dragons either play by their rules, or get stomped.

If I wanted to play a world ruled by dragons and immortal mages, I'd play D&D FR out of the box. Shadowrun should not be Forgotten Realms, with a reality filter of "turn sword to gun, tower to skyscraper, crystal ball to trid" mod running.

[hobgoblin]

Also remember, Using logic to explain things in the history of shadow run. is the same as in battletech. which means its akin to Psychoanalyzing bugs bunny. Just don't and save the asprin (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/notworthy.gif)

[Fortune]

Yeah, that's what I hate: A modern world completely run by relics from the fatansy world. Not in my campaign. In my campaign, megacorps run the world, and dragons either play by their rules, or get stomped.

I guess my Sixth World is big enough to encompass many elements. Megacorporations may be the top dogs in many areas, but there is still room for places to be controlled or heavily influenced by governments (nation-oriented or city-state variety), or a group of elven fanatics, or a Great Dragon or two, or even an anarchistic state or three.

[It trolls!]

With Feuerschwinge being brought up, I alway compared her to Ghostwalker as an example of how wacky and unsubstantial the original German setting was. GW glides in through the rift, checks in at the reception and then goes on to take on a whole army. Feuerschwinge, also being a GD was brought down by some flak from our "We're a placeholder until a real army arrives" army, the Bundeswehr...
I haven't had a look at the Anti-Dragon Task Force thread but now I'm trying to put this in perspective again. How difficult should it be to kill a GD? How strong may such NPCs become, before their powerlevel leads them to ignore most of the world completely because noone could stop them from anything if they tried?