2072 Campaign Book and Dawn of the Artifacts Options

[Masterofthegame]

Just out of curiosity, since I couldn't find it with a quick search:

The ad materials for Dawn of Artifacts: Midnight mentioned a 2072 campaign book, but someone on RPG.net hinted that it might have been canceled. Is this book still in the works, or is that correct? Are the other Artifacts adventures going to be released at some point still? I had assumed so, but the comment made me curious.

Edit: Arg - Obviously the title should be 2072. I blame the fact that it's 1AM

[treehugger]

It'd be fun to have some kind of event for the 21th december of 2012 ... after all, it's going to be the first awakening day no ? ^^ (or is it 2011 in SR background ?)

[MK Ultra]

It´s 2011 in SR, and it was Dec. 24th.

My FLGS still has DotA: Darkest on the incomming list for Aug. 15th, War! for Oct. 15th and DotA: New Dawn for 12th of Dec. But maybe that´s no longer up to date...

[Grinder]

Edit: Arg - Obviously the title should be 2072. I blame the fact that it's 1AM

Edited the title.

[Hagga]

It'd be fun to have some kind of event for the 21th december of 2012 ... after all, it's going to be the first awakening day no ? ^^ (or is it 2011 in SR background ?)

I' think every shadowrun group WILL meet on the day, secretly hoping. And all of them are going to think they're hilariously original by dropping to the ground, screaming and writhing and yelling OH GOD IT BURNS MY BONES.

[Prime Mover]

DotA was/is the build up to a setting book. (Some spoilers about this book were dropped on another rpg forum. From what I understand some if not all of the writing was from people no longer under the employ at Catalyst. What this means were still waiting to find out. From past conversations DotA had some serious birth pains and having to rewrite the finally so late in the game would be a shame. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

[Masterofthegame]

Edited the title.

Thanks, much appreciated.

[Ancient History]

Dawn of the Artifacts is a series of four connected adventures which were leading up to a big campaign book in the style of Harlequin and suchlike. The initial plot went through a great many changes, which I know because I had more than a small hand in it myself, particularly the campaign book. At the time when I terminated my contracts, the campaign book was in first drafts, so now it's half gone and needs be rewritten if it's ever to see the light of day. The DotA adventures themselves have been delayed a might from their original scheduling for various reasons.

And trust me when I say you don't want to see the first outline of the campaign. It was...pretty horrible. From what I understand it was handed down to Synner from Those-Who-Sit-Above-in-Shadow, and it took many, many tries to get it down to a point of a not-too-bloody-stupid campaign. I wrote the last draft myself, and that was still at least one away from the point of least possible idiocy.

[The Pat]

Judging by the "quality" of the first installment I am not to confident on the overall campaign.

Try to work without spoilers, so I will limit myself to this:
a) Every punk in the adventure is a level 3+ initiate adept
b) The real "key" people go without stats, because "they can just doi whatever the GM thinks they should do"
---> What is the role of the (potentially beginning) runners given this situation?!?!?!

and the following:
- Imagine you are a supersuper-runner-being best pal with a dragon guy.
- Now there ia an auction where you just bought a piece against other bidders who are also armed and pwoerfull to their ears.
- You now these other folks want the item you won (for>2 mio NY) badly
- You are in a "civil war" zone and need to get to the airport
What do you do:
a) Take an armed helicopter or call your dragon buddy to fly you out or rent a small army to escrot you
or
b) Go on your own by cab and hope you throw of other pursuers by not taking the car in the garage but the cab at the front door
???

Well, the module assumes the guy choses option b). GREAT WRITING GUYS!

[Johnny B. Good]

Judging by the "quality" of the first installment I am not to confident on the overall campaign.

Try to work without spoilers, so I will limit myself to this:
a) Every punk in the adventure is a level 3+ initiate adept
b) The real "key" people go without stats, because "they can just doi whatever the GM thinks they should do"
---> What is the role of the (potentially beginning) runners given this situation?!?!?!

and the following:
- Imagine you are a supersuper-runner-being best pal with a dragon guy.
- Now there ia an auction where you just bought a piece against other bidders who are also armed and pwoerfull to their ears.
- You now these other folks want the item you won (for>2 mio NY) badly
- You are in a "civil war" zone and need to get to the airport
What do you do:
a) Take an armed helicopter or call your dragon buddy to fly you out or rent a small army to escrot you
or
b) Go on your own by cab and hope you throw of other pursuers by not taking the car in the garage but the cab at the front door
???

Well, the module assumes the guy choses option b). GREAT WRITING GUYS!

Sounds like some of the writers have been hitting the NERPS a little too hard.

[Masterofthegame]

Thanks for the answers, I guess I'll just wait around and see what shakes out then.

[Bira]

Pat is exaggerating a little, I feel. Dawn of the Artifacts is definitely not a campaign for beginners. Maybe they should have spelled it out more clearly, but it's already pretty clear to me by the quality of the opposition. The "punks" referred to above are actually the palace guard for the king of an Awakened nation. Breaking into said palace is referred to in the text as something that should optimally be avoided, but is still supposed to be within the capabilities of the runner group.

If you're taking starting characters through this, you're doing it wrong (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) .

[Hagga]

A) As said, palace guards for King of an Awakened Nation. Also called neon signs, specifically, signs that read "Do not do what you are thinking about doing".
B) Harlequin's been like this for a while. Frosty's not nearly as cheesy, but she's still got all sorts of dirty tricks and generally stays out of the action except for a few very specific times.

And you go tyhrough the city because you don't have any other options; you can't rent anything there and then (barring an Okada), everyone is out to kill you and you did rent a transport; you just need to get to it. Even if you did go POW, TRANSPORT you still have to get through a *massive* amount of gridlock. No way to land a helicopter on the building, assuming you could even get one through Lagos without it getting shot down.

[Semerkhet]

A) As said, palace guards for King of an Awakened Nation. Also called neon signs, specifically, signs that read "Do not do what you are thinking about doing".
B) Harlequin's been like this for a while. Frosty's not nearly as cheesy, but she's still got all sorts of dirty tricks and generally stays out of the action except for a few very specific times.

And you go tyhrough the city because you don't have any other options; you can't rent anything there and then (barring an Okada), everyone is out to kill you and you did rent a transport; you just need to get to it. Even if you did go POW, TRANSPORT you still have to get through a *massive* amount of gridlock. No way to land a helicopter on the building, assuming you could even get one through Lagos without it getting shot down.

Dawn went pretty well for my group and required less tinkering than Midnight did. This is how my I and my group handled it.

[ Spoiler ]

-I gave Frost(y) a set of stats that made her a powerful veteran runner with a few unique metamagic feats. I refused to let her be a statless Deus Ex Machina.
-I heavily modified the scene in which she reveals her uber-ness by making what she did to help in the ambush less spectacular and in line with one of the unique metamagic techniques I gave her. It was all moot when my group managed to avoid the ambush.
-When the mission changed to "get the map at all costs" and the group realized they had a real chance of being outbid, they did the logical thing and rented a helicopter. During the auction one runner went with Frost and the rest stayed with the rented chopper. They very cleverly sabotaged the Aztech chopper. When Medjay, the agent of Celedyr, wins the auction and leaves the building his plan is, I shit you not, to strike out alone and on okada to make it to the airport. This is the part of the plot that, in hindsight, I should have modified. So he heads out across the bridge on an okada. The team takes off and quickly overtakes him while he's still on the bridge. Judicious placement of a number of CS grenades, a Levitate spell on the map case and then a clutch sniper rifle shot to sever the strap holding the case to Medjay's back. The map case levitates up to the chopper while Medjay goes down under a combination of CS gas and gel-round fire from the team's street sam. The Aztech team is delayed by their sabotaged chopper, the APEP team hasn't even gotten to their boat by this point, and all the other hopefuls have set up ambushes further along the route.

So they got away clean and stylish. As I said, I should have given Medjay more support. The author badly wanted a foot race through the slums of Lagos and had to defy the logic of the SR universe to get that scene written.

[Warlordtheft]

Dawn went pretty well for my group and required less tinkering than Midnight did. This is how my I and my group handled it.

Yeah, hmm. Line of sight, lots of guns (Lagos remember), and traveling on the SR equivilent of a Vespa.....basically my group did something similar.

Still have not seen a hard copy of Midnight at my FLGS.