Dawn of Artifact contacts Options

[Mantis]

For any GMs who have run these adventures, what connection rating would you give to the contacts the PCs can earn. The only one actually given a connection/loyalty value is Jane.

Dawn of Artifacts 1 Dusk
Cheerful - fixer at the Leventis store
Peaceful - fixer/guard at Porto Novo hotel
Amadi - talismonger/healer at the Amulet market
Kayin - hawala/antiquities dealer
Oni Adegoke - Yoruba king

Dawn of Artifacts 2 Midnight
Spire Enterprises (group contact most likely) - transport corporation
Steelsky Clan (group contact most likely) - smuggler clan
Sonora - shadowrunner

We haven't played through the rest yet but I'll likely ask about them when we get to it. Please don't give them out now as that would/could be spoilers. Thanks.

Edit: Wow! 105 views and not a single reply? Has no one actually run this?

[BishopMcQ]

Here are my completely unofficial answers

Dawn of Artifacts 1 Dusk
Cheerful - fixer at the Leventis store C3
Peaceful - fixer/guard at Porto Novo hotel C2
Amadi - talismonger/healer at the Amulet market C4
Kayin - hawala/antiquities dealer C5
Oni Adegoke - Yoruba king C5

Dawn of Artifacts 2 Midnight
Spire Enterprises (group contact most likely) - transport corporation C7 Group
Steelsky Clan (group contact most likely) - smuggler clan C7 Group
Sonora - shadowrunner C2

[tasti man LH]

Edit: Wow! 105 views and not a single reply? Has no one actually run this?

I've gotten the impression that most here on DS don't really care enough to run ANY of the official published modules for SR4.

...actually, slightly inaccurate: an old thread I looked at seem to imply that everyone ran/read this one, was immediately turned off by it, and never bothered to run the rest in the Dawn series.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I've gotten the impression that most here on DS don't really care enough to run ANY of the official published modules for SR4.

...actually, slightly inaccurate: an old thread I looked at seem to imply that everyone ran/read this one, was immediately turned off by it, and never bothered to run the rest in the Dawn series.

We would lilkely run them if we had them. Unfortunately, our Primary GM (who has them) has taken a hiatus due to Life, and no one else at our table owns them to my knowledge.

[tasti man LH]

Well, lucky for me, I do have all of them, and I do plan to run them with my current group.

I may or may not make a thread with my thoughts on the adventures themselves (since yeah, when I was looking through DS's old threads, no one really made a proper review of Dawn 2-4).

[Mantis]

@Thanks BishopMQ. That is pretty close to what I was thinking. Can I bug you for the base connection you used for the two groups?

For the rest, we are running these and while some aspects are annoying (resource management, constant bribes), the adventures themselves are pretty fun and provide a nice intro to a number of both feral cities and corporate enclaves. It's also nice to get outside the character's usual stomping grounds and see how things work elsewhere.

[BishopMcQ]

Mantis--I went with 20-99 members, Sprawl, minor magic, broad matrix resources for both groups. I don't recall either having much detail so I was winging it.

Tasti--I think the biggest complaint about Dusk was the big reveal scene for Frosty and fears of a Mary Sue. The author fought against the scene as written but was told to do it that way. (It was several developers ago, so none of the current staff really had a voice or role in DotA1.) I tossed out stats to use for Frosty, or they can be found in one of the later supplements. Adding those instead of the blanket "Frosty is cooler than you" should address most of the issues. at least it did for my group when I ran it, and for several other groups that I've spoken with.

In Midnight, my group left Frosty at the safe house in LA...leaving her to be ambushed and call the runners to be the Big Damn Heroes that they're supposed to be. They also hit her with a bus...the full details of which are posted in one of these threads.

[Nath]

Oni Adegoke - Yoruba king C5

Oni Adegoke can possibly be considered a Connectivity 6 contact. He is a powerful African warlord ; AA megacorporation Global Sandstorm deals with him to secure their oil operations in Nigeria. He's also the owner of a major collection of archaeological piece divided between his palace and a museum in Ife, who could draw major players to an auction sale. Don't focus on the folklore: he's probably the kind of guy to have a private jet, luxury mansions in London and Paris, a lawyer in Zurich to manage his accounts, not to mention the "honorable ambassadors of the Yoruba Kingdom" with diplomatic privileges that obey his instructions.

[BishopMcQ]

Nath--Sure, I can see it go either way. I put him in the group of "knows people in a large area", roughly equivalent to the head of Renraku's cybernetics division. Both would know a handful of people from around the globe, but primarily focused on the National scale.

I look at Connection as how wide spread can the person enact change:
1-Neighborhood level (Georgetown)
2-City level (Seattle)
3-Sprawl-wide level (Seattle Metroplex)
4-Regional (Pacific Northwest)
5-National/Continental (North America)
6-International (Global)

[tasti man LH]

Tasti--I think the biggest complaint about Dusk was the big reveal scene for Frosty and fears of a Mary Sue. The author fought against the scene as written but was told to do it that way. (It was several developers ago, so none of the current staff really had a voice or role in DotA1.) I tossed out stats to use for Frosty, or they can be found in one of the later supplements. Adding those instead of the blanket "Frosty is cooler than you" should address most of the issues. at least it did for my group when I ran it, and for several other groups that I've spoken with.

In Midnight, my group left Frosty at the safe house in LA...leaving her to be ambushed and call the runners to be the Big Damn Heroes that they're supposed to be. They also hit her with a bus...the full details of which are posted in one of these threads.

Yeah, I remember reading that in the old thread for Dusk. And yeah, got a glimpse at the stats for Frosty in Artifacts Unbound; still on the fence if I want to use them or not.

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure how my group will react when that scene comes up and if I play it as is. I do have one player that would have preferred to mow down all of the ghouls himself (then again, this is the same guy who's been begging me to add more combat encounters so it's not really the fault of the scene) and one or two that would object to being rail-roaded.

I don't really want to write out Frosty from the Dawn adventures either, since I planned to have some of the other JackPointers pop up in my campaign to provide help to some of my PCs, specifically in their backstories. And Frosty's a good gateway to providing them access to said JackPointers.

Guess I'll have to run it and see...(not for about another month though. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) )

[Errant]

I found it easier to just have her as a voice over a commlink. Saves dealing with a lot of the shenanigans, still keeps her available for exposition.

[tasti man LH]

If I did that approach, THEN I'd have the issue of my table's hacker(s) try to track her to find the little man behind the curtain, just because they want to know why the hell she can't be there with them.

(seriously, I'm not kidding: one of said hackers tried to hack into Seattle's GridGuide for the sole purpose of trying to gain control of it to stop a car full of Yakuza kidnappers. I KNOW they would try to track down the lady on the phone, even if it meant derailing the adventure)

[toturi]

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure how my group will react when that scene comes up and if I play it as is. I do have one player that would have preferred to mow down all of the ghouls himself (then again, this is the same guy who's been begging me to add more combat encounters so it's not really the fault of the scene) and one or two that would object to being rail-roaded.

Well, my GM ran it modified. The ghouls weren't an endless number and they didn't all decide to that we were the ghoul tastiest treats ever. We killed quite a few ghouls. OK, we asked if there was a bounty on ghouls and the GM answered in the affirmative. We killed a lot of ghouls. Enough that the sniper player was calculating the most cost efficient method to take down ghouls and Frosty didn't do a thing.

[Mantis]

Thanks again Bishop. Much appreciated.
I thought exactly that about Frosty, a Mary Sue jacking around with our ops. When she pulled out the big guns to take care of the ghouls the team was kind of going, "well if you can do that what the hell do you need us for?". Then she passed out from the drain. So that put her in the same category as our regular mage when he passes out from casting the big spell to help us out.
For Midnight, she ended up performing her ritual with the map twice and couldn't do much of anything magical. So she was pretty much there to pay the bills and give a little advice when needed. Personally, I found Samriel more annoying. That and the bad guys always finding our safehouses and ambushing us at will. We figured Frosty must have the Media Junkie quality and was just tweeting or mefeeding or Pitoing our location every time we stopped. It was funnier than what was actually happening that way. The team would give her a hard time about keeping her mouth shut about locations and to stop picking hotels with chemical toilets.

[tasti man LH]

Hmm, I guess the next issue would be revealing who Frosty really is without having to do the ghoul encounter (I might just run it as a normal combat encounter, but only do the big spell if the PCs are having trouble).

It could be as simple as Frosty talking with someone in front of the PCs and the other NPC name drops her street handle. Or she casts a couple of smaller spells and the PCs' mage notices that her kind of magic seems a bit unusual than other magic that they've seen.

Time to start playing around with ideas then...

For Midnight, she ended up performing her ritual with the map twice and couldn't do much of anything magical. So she was pretty much there to pay the bills and give a little advice when needed. Personally, I found Samriel more annoying. That and the bad guys always finding our safehouses and ambushing us at will. We figured Frosty must have the Media Junkie quality and was just tweeting or mefeeding or Pitoing our location every time we stopped. It was funnier than what was actually happening that way.

How many safehouses were you using? Last I checked, in Midnight there's only the one safehouse that's in LA that gets used.

The team would give her a hard time about keeping her mouth shut about locations and to stop picking hotels with chemical toilets.

HA! Wait 'til you get to Darkest Hour...

[Mantis]

The Yaks finding her in Denver while we were looking for Sonora was another 'safehouse'. Really what I mean is it didn't seem to matter what we did or where we were, the bad guys could find us or her at will. That takes some of the 'free will' aspect of what your character does out of the equation. If nothing you do makes any difference to the result, that gets pretty damn annoying. Our team tends to be pretty paranoid on the job and will go to some pretty good lengths to keep what they are up to under the radar.
Like I said, this stuff is more annoying than destructive, which was what led to the whole Media Junkie joke. It also cast some doubts on the quality of Frosty's contacts/resources since they didn't seem to be doing their job as far as keeping things under the radar (ambush at the LA safehouse being a good example). The other interested parties always seemed to know as much or more than we did about where to find Sonora and what she was up to despite not having the map. It just seemed like we were always using the least efficient method to get the job done.

[BishopMcQ]

HA! Wait 'til you get to Darkest Hour...

Did I make people use chemical toilets? *Goes back to book*

[Nath]

Tasti--I think the biggest complaint about Dusk was the big reveal scene for Frosty and fears of a Mary Sue. The author fought against the scene as written but was told to do it that way. (It was several developers ago, so none of the current staff really had a voice or role in DotA1.)

To be preceise, only one developper ago. Dusk was published under developper Peter Taylor, with Jason Hardy already around for the editing work.

Hmm, I guess the next issue would be revealing who Frosty really is without having to do the ghoul encounter (I might just run it as a normal combat encounter, but only do the big spell if the PCs are having trouble).

Depends on what you consider she "really is", besides a lazy mage with Masking. There should be more in being the daughter of an immortal elve, the pupil of his long-time rival and a character of Harlequin and Harlequin's Back than just casting big manaballs only when you're getting out of patience, as she puts it, and not cope with the drain.

At least she could have made it a bit classy by whispering "I have written Harlequin's pupil is here in signs that all can read from Rivendell to the mouths of Anduin." before collapsing.

[ Spoiler ]

IMO, the ritual she performs on the Piri Reis map in Midnight and Darkest Hour, with proper introduction and description, is a much better way to tell the players why she's more than the average employer.

I also really feels bad for Georgly Abelev. Not only does he never get any recognition for setting up a trap that almost kill the PC, but his efforts actually were totally useless, since even after paying bribes, he still has enough fund to outbid Jane during the auction, and then is the only one among bidder not to have a plan to aggressively retrieve the map after.

[Mantis]

Did I make people use chemical toilets? *Goes back to book*

The 'luxury' hotel of Porto Novo in Lagos certainly had chemical toilets. I guess that was kind of a step up for that place though. The hotel we used in Chicago also had them as it was quite close to the containment zone. When what we consider the basics of life are sub-par in places you wouldn't expect, that's when it really hits home as to what kind of shit hole (no pun intended) you've fallen into. That helped sell the atmosphere of the two feral cities anyway.

I also really feels bad for Georgly Abelev. Not only does he never get any recognition for setting up a trap that almost kill the PC, but his efforts actually were totally useless, since even after paying bribes, he still has enough fund to outbid Jane during the auction, and then is the only one among bidder not to have a plan to aggressively retrieve the map after.

Maybe he would have been better off hiring a team of his own rather than trying to bribe and buy his way to the map. Either that it shows a certain amount of naivete on his part to have not thought of the hard option when everyone else has.

For Jane, her pulling out the big spell in Lagos felt a little cheap as our team at the time seemed to have the ghoul hordes in hand (no one had been hit and we had plenty of shotgun ammo left). She seemed to spend the rest of the time in Lagos just spinning her wheels while the team got on with the job.
The magical members of the group made the mistake of sitting in on the first of her map rituals in Midnight so when she decided to do the second one they all ran the other way. This did give a good reason for her not to do anything magical though, which was nice. The team gets hints that she is more than she appears every so often but I'm not sure how you would play that up more without her seeming to be too much of a Mary Sue.

[BishopMcQ]

The 'luxury' hotel of Porto Novo in Lagos certainly had chemical toilets. I guess that was kind of a step up for that place though. The hotel we used in Chicago also had them as it was quite close to the containment zone.

I was checking Darkest Hour to see how the trend went.

Without out any spoilers, there are real beds in [REDACTED]. When you get [REDACTED] in the [REDACTED], I hope you have fun. Though [REDACTED] might be a little rough, just whatever you do, don't [REDACTED] the [REDACTED].

[Mantis]

LOL. Nice. That's the best way to avoid spoilers. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[tasti man LH]

Yeah, all I can say is that there are no treking to feral cities in Darkest Hour, which means going to not-so-shithole hotels.

[BishopMcQ]

Tasti--Don't forget the blue helmets.

Going back to the Frosty discussion--There is a possible subconversation that can crop up with Carella. That paragraph sheds some light on how I would have preferred to use Frosty and her connections throughout the DotA arc.

[Mantis]

Tasti--Don't forget the blue helmets.

Oh does that mean we'll actually see someone using the FN P93 SMGs in a game? I thought it was kind of neat to get one as a reward from the New York missions but you couldn't actually carry the damn thing as it is forbidden. I guess potential opposition using it is the next best thing.

Going back to the Frosty discussion--There is a possible subconversation that can crop up with Carella. That paragraph sheds some light on how I would have preferred to use Frosty and her connections throughout the DotA arc.

Thanks. I'll check into that.

[BishopMcQ]

When you get to Darkest Hour, all errors in there are mine. Feel free to curse my name at will and yell at me for my mistakes. It's been awhile since anyone tore apart my work.