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Spike
Now, I've been a Shadowrun geek since some time in 1989 or abouts when I first saw a promotional cutout some time before the game was actually released and saved every penny so I could buy it when it hit the shelves some long long months later. Forgive me if I have the year wrong, I'm old and forgetful or something.

But, as a Gamer I've never been into adventure modules, and often skipped world sourcebooks. I wanted toys and gadgets, sometimes I wanted rules and abilities and powers. That's what I stuck to buying.

But in the long ages of Shadowrun play you can't help but be exposed to things like Deus and Renraku arcology, and Dukelzhan and Immortal Elves and Art Dankwalter and orbital strikes on same.

Now that I'm here I find that a huge percentage of my fellow SR fans apparently love that shit and followed it closely. So, does anyone want to bother explaining a few things about the metaplot? Who is Art Dankwalther and why should I care about his death, for example. Why should runners in my games give to flying figs if some daisy eaters in Tir are immortal holdovers from 10000 years ago...

And what exactly am I really missing? I mean, i know a bit about the Great Dragons and can read annotated D's will online, but that doesn't really help and I'm not tracking down thirty odd books I don't have to seek out the hidden clues.
eidolon
One of the best tools for "catching up" on the metaplot has to be the Timeline Explorer. The thing is awesome (even if it does currently stop a bit short).
sunnyside
First off fluff can be just be fun and pull people into a world. It also allows people to operate at a "deeper" level.

That, by the way, is why I think all the old sourcebooks were written as documents on Shadowland with thin gamemaster sections in the back.

So, for example, lets say that you decided that you want to get your characters mixed up in Bug City when that went down (a massive insect spirit hive burst in Chicago and assosiated schenanigans). Odds are you might drop them right into the heart of it (they show up for a run before the drek hits the fan and then they're stuck).

After one session of the players wondering what is going on (go on have fun describing them watching the tacnuke drop or whatever) you can have their decker get a temporary line out to shadowland and they download a file.

Then you plop the sourcebook down in front of them and say they can borrow it.

The result is that for the next session they can understand how to interact with the world they find themselves in and can make plans about rooming with the ghouls or doing something to the Volk and so on. They'll argue about whether or not to take a shortcut through the shattergraves and generally be involved in the game at a different level.

Of course you could write your own 60+ page sourcebooks for the same effect, but in my opinion our GM time is better spent prepping specific goings on for our players to interact with and letting a sourcebook give them the background.

Of course if your running in 2070 that particular sourcebook is out of date, but I'm sure they'll keep putting them out. And some like "smuggler havens/underworld sourcebook" are still relevant and have useful info for your players that again allow them to interact with the world on a deeper level.
sunnyside
double post for slightly different topic.

Adventures are slighly different. I tend to not think as highly of them as the players don't get to read them and I feel I can come up with better stuff anyway. However for any new GM I would encourage them to read some of the better adventures to get a feel for how shadowrun is different than D&D in 2070 with subplots, legwork, gears within gears, tree structures, variable degrees of mission success and so on (still often too linear for my tastes).

However it's occasionally nice to have a little legitimacy behind you. Usually that's just silly and you don't need it. But I've got a feeling that if you ran something like "Harlequin's Back" that you'd made yourself your players would figure you'd completly lost it. It's a little different when it's cannon.

(On that note there should be a new crop of players coming up who have never heard of Harlequin. And that adventure isn't really tied to a date unless you're REALLY picky about your metaplot and follow the novels.)
Ancient History
QUOTE (Spike)
And what exactly am I really missing? I mean, i know a bit about the Great Dragons and can read annotated D's will online, but that doesn't really help and I'm not tracking down thirty odd books I don't have to seek out the hidden clues.

<shrug> Sorry. Any specific questions?
Spike
well, I did mention that other than the fact that he's dead, I know nothing of Art Dankwalther.. .not even if I have his name right.

I guess that's a start...
fistandantilus4.0
To answer the two that you pointd out:

Art was the guy that got a butt load of cash from Dunkie's will of course. Then he got pissed of at Richard Villiers. So he bagen using his billions to destroy a couple of corps (Like Gunderson Int, a AA based out of Miami) as practice before he went after Novatech directly. he essentially tried to destroy the AAA mega. This is important because :

1) he did pretty much destroy Gunderson, which had a lot of side effects. Wuxing got most of their shipping fleet, so they got stronger. gunderson controlled most of Miami through their security force. When the corp went under, paying the police became a problem and every wanna be crime lord took it as a green light.

2) he showed the a AAA can be vulnerable, which is bad for thier bottom line. he did almost take out Novatech with a ton of runs. Which means business for your players.

3) His actions lead directly to Novatechs IPO, and their joining up with Transys and Erkia to form Neonet. It also made Villiers take on partners again, and involved a Great Dragon in his corp.

As for Immortal elves:

That really depends on your game. If you never bother with the Tir, and aren't into the workings of Great Dragons and such, it may never matter. but there are examples where their plots spill over.
[ Spoiler ]
.

So really with IE's it depends on wether or not you want to uset hem as a plot device or just ignore them. If you acknowledge their actions, they can be doing lots of things behind the scene, much like Lowfyr is behind lots of politics in Europe. Dragons can be used the same way. As the puppet master types behind the scenes, occasionally stepping out to deal directly with something. up to you.
cristomeyers
Really depends on how much magical politics and subplot you want in your setting. Bringing the Immortal Elves and Great Dragons as anything more than "those guys" will usually also lead to the Horrors and the metaplanes.

and Harlequin's Back is tied to a date. otherwise he and another IE wouldn't be able to smooth out the Spike in 2064(?)
fistandantilus4.0
QUOTE (Spike)
well, I did mention that other than the fact that he's dead, I know nothing of Art Dankwalther.. .not even if I have his name right.

I guess that's a start...

Little more detial on Art since you asked, he took his billions and basically set up an army of accoutns to invest it and make him more money. Then he started setting up a network of fixers and shadow talent, did a practice run against an A rated corp first, and wiped it out. Then he saved up again, and went after Gunderson. After Gunderson, he went after Novatech.

Now the reason he did all this... well, Art got fired from Fuchi during the corp war. he picked up a BTL habit pretty bad for a while .Eventually he got off the chips well enough to find out that he was a billionare, went to the Darco Foundation, and picked up his money.

He started blowing his cash, buying up houses and yachts and cars and all that (after the UCAS goverment got it's cut at least). Then he met Richard Villiers as at one of his parties. he went to introduce him self, and Villiers blew him off. Art was pissed because he figured he was finally on par with his former "corporate masster" and Villiers barely aknowledged his existance. Art snapped basically, went more than just a bit nuts (partly due to abusing his brain for a good few years on BTLs) , sold all his crap, and started gearing up for his own little crazy war.

Whole things detailed in the Threats 2 book. Gives a lot more details and some nice fictiony bits. Basically Art was a nutter.
Spike
Sounds like Art was a great character... so why was everyone so happy he got waxed by orbital timbers?

fistandantilus4.0
Well for one, not everyone agreed that he was a great guy, or interesting. For two, hell I think that's an awesome way to go. biggrin.gif I'd like to go out like that when my time comes personally.

"How'd he die? Heart attack?"

"No, Thor shot."

"Awesome!"
Spike
That is an awesome way to go out Much Agreed. biggrin.gif

But yeah, a guy like that makes an excellent plot device. I guess some folks didn't like the constant tearing apart ofthe local scenery or somesuch


fistandantilus4.0
Me, I like entropy. Need to break some things to make room for the new. Besides, I got a mob game going in Miami that is all the better for it.

Anything else? I know AH loves dragony/IE/Old magic questions. Check out his page for more tasty bits of knowledge. Ask some more questions man, get some of those answers. Like the man said
QUOTE (Ancient History)
<shrug> Sorry. Any specific questions?


Give us something specific smile.gif
Spike
Well, that's part of the problem without having all those books that reveal all this stuff... I barely know what's worth askign about!!!

I guess I could ask if anything has happened since Survival of the Fittest or what's goign on in Chicago after the Bug City Nuke thing, or the entire outcome of the Yucatan thing and impacts to same, but I'm sure those are simple things...
Spike
Oh, and did they ever talk about Echo Mirage other than what was in the opening of all the editions? ANd what caused the crashes?
fistandantilus4.0
Both crashes were caused by Viruses. The first was "just" a realy nasty, bleeding edge SOTA virus that oculd kill people. The second one was designed by some otaku specifically to crash the matrix and kill people. That combined with some EMPs from some terrorists to crash major matrix hosts hardware brought it down the second time. For refernces, Dragon Heart Trilogy for the first, and System Failure for the second.

As for Echo Mirage, they're never really together after the first crash, but differnet people, like the decker "Buddy" do crop up from time to time. Damien knight was supposed to be one. The guys that put out the first commercial cyber deck were two, and so was Buddy, who shows up in the novel 2XS by Nigel Findley, which I recommend.

For the Yucatan, read up on Runner Havens. It's hard to tell you what happened without already knowing what ya know, ya know?
Want more questions, read some novels, or AH's site, or Demonseed Elite. Both have links in their sigs. And like eidolon said, take an hour or so and go over the timeline.
Adam
The Sixth World Wiki may also prove to be useful.
fistandantilus4.0
I always forget that one.
Ancient History
QUOTE (Spike)
Oh, and did they ever talk about Echo Mirage other than what was in the opening of all the editions? ANd what caused the crashes?

I actually have a page that covers the Crash of '29 and events after that, but I haven't gotten around to updating it yet. dead.gif
Kyoto Kid
...Sunnyside's summation about fluff is perfect. To get the feel of a setting you need scenery, that is what expansions such as The London Sourcebook, The Germany Sourcebook, Bug City, the Tir Taringire, the Tir Na Nog. The various Neo-Anarchist's guides to... were all about. Setting flavour. That is what attracted me to Shadowrun. Even run modules (such as Paradise Lost) that had a setting source material section helped to mould the post awakened world. Alas, I only read the first few novels, never was much into what I considered as "spin-off" stuff, (for example played a lot in D&D's Forgotten Realms but never read even one of the associated novels).
fistandantilus4.0
Too bad, the novels are where all the best dirt is. I loved Paradise Lost, but books like Germany just left me wanting. But oyu are right, some of those old books were good at giving you the feel of the place through the fluff. I miss the ads. Very happy to see some of them in Street magic. Suki Redflower! She must age well...
Grinder
QUOTE (Kyoto Kid)
To get the feel of a setting you need scenery, that is what expansions such as The London Sourcebook, The Germany Sourcebook, Bug City, the Tir Taringire, the Tir Na Nog. The various Neo-Anarchist's guides to... were all about. Setting flavour. That is what attracted me to Shadowrun.

I can't imagine running a game without reading fluff material and dive into the metaplot. Thus said, read some old sourcebooks, Spike, preferable one or two about regions that are possible locations for your games. Not only will you get more feeling for the 6th world, metaplot will show up too. biggrin.gif
SL James
QUOTE (Spike @ Feb 9 2007, 03:57 PM)
Now that I'm here I find that a huge percentage of my fellow SR fans apparently love that shit and followed it closely.

Some of us follow it closely, but hate it with the intensity of a billion exploding suns.

But it becomes useful when you're writing a background for a PC who would have been an NPC in the Dead Run adventure of Shadows of the Underworld, and end up making a character from Prison Break back in 2001.

IOW, weaving around the crap can (and has for quite a few people I've known) make a person a better author, and a better gamer.
NightmareX
QUOTE (SL James)
Some of us follow it closely, but hate it with the intensity of a billion exploding suns.

But it becomes useful when you're writing a background for a PC who would have been an NPC in the Dead Run adventure of Shadows of the Underworld, and end up making a character from Prison Break back in 2001.

IOW, weaving around the crap can (and has for quite a few people I've known) make a person a better author, and a better gamer.

And then there's those of us that follow the metaplot and like (most) of it, but never use it. Indeed avoid it with as much relish as SLJames does, for similar and different reasons.
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