Hey, it could have been worse. He could have harvested the dead animal for its ware. THAT would have been disturbing.

The ending just seemed very "OMG SR HAS TO BE STREET LEVEL DURRRR!!!"
I mean, yes, you got that across with the cancerous dog that had blood in its pee and the shelter employees who shot them in the head instead of euthanizing them. Chester surviving would have been the perfect ending to the story, with the main character having a rational reason to be able to rise above the horror that surrounds him. But he had to Rebar the dog in the eye, just because it would be shocking and sad.

oh come on

seriously people
The GM would have laid a serious smackdown on the runner had he tried to keep the dog, as that would be powergaming.

The end wasn't crap writing, it was metagaming.

Kremlin wins the thread.

*dances the cabbage patch*

It isn't powergaming to reach for resources the GM puts in your grasp. If it isn't something they should have, the runners should never get near it.

but if ya know the GM will punnish you for taking it...

Then you get a new GM, because this one is clearly broken.

~J

Nah, not broken. Nor defective.

Broken implies that it did at one time work, and no longer does.
Defective implies that it would in theory work, but this one was @*%^@ed at the factory.

No, I'd call this one faulty, as in "design flaws".

hehehehe

sadly though, far too many GMs end up using anything the PCs take or any 'loot' as an excuse for a plot device that screws the players over

Most games need plot devices or things don't happen.

yes but what percentage of plot devices should include "Player characher X gets fragged on and loses everything"

not sure what you consider the right number

But I feel the most wrong number is 100%

100% is almost assuredly the wrong number (unless the player likes it). 0% is also probably the wrong number.

true

They have to have a reason for their ability to track him down, though. They can't just be "LOL OMG YOU JUST STOLE A GUN YOU'RE MARKED FOR LIFE HURRR!" RFID tags should be easy to block. Spirits need to be relatively close for search to work; remember that each kilometer adds 1 to the threshold.

Maybe he had another reason for killing the dog.

Stick is Timothy Roberts? Well, they do share a lack of computer skills...

And holy shit. 2 for public toilets?

It flows better if you just say Fanpr0wned!

Alternately, Fanpwned could work, though I think that one should be saved for the times when the fans have a better grasp of rules interactions than the writers.

~J

Nice short story if a bit light on logic. Some clever discriptions and good contact examples.

just before the KE show up, Sticks has for some reason decided to keep the dog. In his mind, it is HIS dog now. After Chester tears apart two people, it's not his dog, it's his monster.

All right, it's a bit of a stretch, but it does seem to hold together

is a cyberpets brain completely rewired? (yeah never been something i've really read up on...)

i would just like to be satisfied knowing why Hutchison's death -in full view of Chester the Maul-ester- didnt garner our story's hero the new monicker of "Kindling"?...

as for the abrupt end..
"woof. hi, i'm your new best fr" *SPLORT*

rrawww rhat rucks.

killing Chester in cold blood... meh, its obviously not out of the scope of the character, having just previously slain Hutchison w/o significant provocation. having stated early on the need for a monatary influx, making his way back to Soon's suggests -to me- he's about to bodylaunder the uberpooch by one means or another.

i dunno.. as readers we are less left hanging and more subjected to a .50cal "Fin" to the head.

*Splutter* You really think he didn't have significant provocation for killing Hutchison?

~J

Your original point is a good one, and stands. Nevertheless… he refused to pay (remember, these are Shadowrunners here, there's only one method of conflict resolution if the other party doesn't want to play ball) and called the cops. He's meat on either count from the point of view of any reasonable Shadowrunner, IMO.

~J

Oh yeah. Refusal to pay and a backstabbing together means he should feel lucky to have been killed. There are much worse ways to make a lesson out of someone.

"You'll have to forgive my friend. She's an assassin, and has a very narrow view of conflict resolution." - Tanya Huff, The Fifth Quarter

I think there are probably a few cases where it's possible to stiff the team and not deserve death (a cataclysmic fall from grace that costs you your Johnson job and your house, so you can't requisition funds and can't pay out-of-pocket, maybe). But bragging that you've called the police?

"That wasn't murder, that was suicide." - Terry Pratcht, Lois McMaster Bujold, various others

Well, I kinda liked the story. For once it was actually really dark and properly violent. The runner clearly wasn't exactly high-caliber, so i think it's believable he forgot about the RFID chip.

Sure, there are plot holes. Pretty big ones. Mostly the murdering of 4 people without any apparent repercussions, but that that doesn't mean the story if god-awful. At least not to me, I guess. The atmosphere was good. Gives out the proper feeling of just how depraved the SR world is.

yeah.. true. thank you for pointing this out to me. i did mistake Hutchison's rant towards Sticks soley as an emotional attachment to the dog... i didnt look at it as a loss of future breeding profit for the J. too busy looking at other angles to see the obvious. man, negative karma for me.

Awesome.

First AH, congrats on getting some fiction published, I thought it was great. interestingly you can really tell that you found the character as you got more into the story. By the end I am wanting more of Sticks. So I hope you write him some more.

I have always felt that exact proper grammar is second to flow and pacing. You had excellent feel of both. If some complain about your use of grammar I would ignore them.

I felt you really got the feel for Shadowrun down. Regardless of edition. I hope to see more of the hard hitting detective! Best of all, you have inspired me to write some more!!!!


-Shadow

Proper grammar is imperative to flow and pacing. Improper grammar creates a hitch that trips the reader up briefly, destroying both of those qualities.

~J

Yes and no. Many established authors often break the rules of "proper" grammar to make a character feel more alive. After all, we do not talk with proper grammar. I am not saying you can ignore it, or not know it. Just that you shouldn't get hung on one line that may or may not fit someone’s idea of proper grammar.

I know you write extensively so I am sure you know what I mean. The failure has been on my part to communicate the idea properly.

Stop trying to make sense and expect any type of writing quality approaching mediocre, Kage. It's embarassing.

Was that really necessary? AH is at least trying to be a writer. He probably put in a hundred hours on this story. I understand if you don't like it, but to just insult it like that... well what the hell have you written and had published?

At least grant him the margin of respect that all of us (writers and aspiring writers) deserve for at least trying.

Proper grammar is imperative to storytelling. However, especially in the case of first-person narratives, "proper" seldom means "by the book correct".

You've got to be kidding.

I've spent thousands of man hours so far this year writing fiction. I've spent less than 20 writing a 5,000 word submission for Fanpro that I will now never submit because I don't want it to be associated in any fucking way with the crap that AH wrote.

Have I been published? Not for fiction. So fucking what? Just because one of his fellow DS buddies slaps his shit on the SR website doesn't make it worth reading.

Maybe my standards have been lowered by the fiction in SR4, but I don't think it was that bad. Could use work, but not brain-gouging.

~J

Yes, it is brain-gouging. It's one of the few things that I wish I could unread, and I've read sex story newsgroups.

I mean, it's worse than Szeto's horrendous depiction of rigging in Red Eye.

Man would you lay off. So you don't like it. If you want better quality fiction and yours is better, fucking submit it. It's not like your is called Dog Days 2 or anything? Do Phantom Menace et al ruin how good the original triolgy was (in a dumb space opera way). Stop bitching and show how good you are.

Plus there have been by Gmt 2737 hours this years, I'm shure you write alot but judgeing by your posts, and the fact i think you eat, and probably work too, thousands of hours seems unlikely. Sorry for the pedantry but you deserve it.

The story is to my mind well written but has a poor finish, it just seemed weak. Just to cover my opinion on it.

As much as I dislike the ending, the story as a whole wasn't bad. It certainly couldn't be compared to Red Eye. And at least Chester didn't shoot first.

I thought it was a great story, except for the "kill the doggie it's dangerous" ending. The random contacts and people to talk to were great, and the main character had the kind of random knowledge about survival learned from random buddies that seems completely plausible. He saw all the degradation of the streets for what it was, and had a properly jaded attitude towards it. I just don't get why he had to kill Chester.

Peace be to journey, children. Everyone is welcome to their own opinions on the piece, just as everyone is welcome to their own opinions on everything. I don't mind the criticism because I am due some and it helps me know what issues I need to address in my writing.