You may agree, but there are a lot in this thread who seem to want IEs in every part of Shadowrun, and do not want a more balanced world.

Who, where?

Are we done arguing now, I could use some Matrix cover over here....

Everyone who tells people to play cyberpunk if they dislike IEs. Everyone who claims that for lack of one IE the SR world falls apart. Everyone who thinks that IEs are the only thing that set SR apart from other games.

See your point.

Not really. I couldn't give a toss one way or the other about IEs; I'm more of a Great Dragon guy.

But you've shown you're not really a fan of anything more mystical than your typical combat mage or the Ordo Maximus that you love to bring up every other post.

I get that you don't want them played up any more. Guess what? Some people agree with you. But besides passing mentions to Leonardo and the whole Council of Tirs thing (it's the bloody elf land, did you not expect that bloody elves would be involved, mostly of the immortal variety?) there didn't seem to be a huge mention of them in 3rd and near to none in 4e so far.

Balanced world does not and should not mean "anything more magical then your occassional ghoul, combat mage, or watcher spirits as part of corpsec." Balanced world means that I get more bugs (have I yet explained how much I love bugs?) or Great Dragon plots and you get EuroWars III or more Yucatan stuff. We don't even know what this Dawn of the Ancients thing is and yet somehow this has gone from a relatively benign conversation about ED backstory into a multipage flamewar that's dragged everyone down into the Dumpshock sewers.

Relax. I very much doubt that the Catalyst folks want to exclude anyone's version of SR here.

Again, proof that you (meant collectively and not directed just at you Fuchs, as others do it too) aren't even reading some replies, because several of us (well, I can only speak for myself) came out and said that "go play Cyberpunk" comment was out of line and apologized.

As far as being an advocate for having them everywhere? Absolutely not. I love what the writers have done with the threats books and placing an equal amount of the spotlight on all of the other bad and powerful organizations out there. I was arguing in favor of at least having some kind of solid backstory that is truth behind the facade or who is really pulling the strings because I am one of those GMs that don't like to stray too much from canon. Whomever is pulling those strings and manipulating those playing pieces can be whoever the writers choose. I said before that I am not an IE fanboy and don't care how much of the world they are manipulating, but I can guarantee it is a lot less being that we had an overthrow in a Tir nation.

But, isn't the entire Shadowrun world a series of world shaking events one after the other? Harlequin was hardly earth shaking and was just some squabbling between to immortals come to head and really shouldn't even have been focused on. But, Big D's death, the Corp War, The Mob War, RAS, Halley's Comet, Crash 2.0, Emergence. As we can see, there really hasn't been too much focus on the ED metaplot (which is what this thread is about). It comes at us in waves, and I like to see it seep in every now and then (like with Orksploitation and the Ort'zet Codex). When I heard the grumbling with Dawn of the Artifacts revealed, I thought there were real issues here, but it doesn't really seem that way.

Oh, no. I have a ton of mystical plots in my campaign - from plots involving Loas to ancient artefacts, from free (ancestor) spirits and great zombies to ghost pirate ships, the bermuda triangle's mysteries, cursed treasures, metaquests (with the spirit gate power involving all, the mundanes too) to planes whose inhabitants claim they are the heirs of the magical past of the SR world, and so on. Vampires, coincidentally, I didn't use in any capacity other than the "infected human" so far. No cabal.

But those are not the movers and shakers of the world. I don't have a cabal of immortals or Dragons running my world, the dragons known (like Lofwyr) are just one faction among many, with the megacorps and the big countries being top dogs (Which makes Lowfyr a top dog, but due to being the owner of S-K, not due to being a great dragon).

My PCs probably encounter a lot more magical, mystical plots and beings than most of the other posters in this thread - but they live in a world dominated by modern science and tech, and modern magic. The relics of the 4th age - some items, and some spirits so far in my campaign - are just that, relics. My SR world as a whole has passed and often surpassed them, and doesn't revolve around them, even if for some - even for some PCs - they may be or become central.

I said that everyone who tells people to go play cyberpunk is advocating to have IEs all over the place. If you don't do that, then why would you assume I was talking to or about you? Is this proof you do not even read the posts?



I already mentioned threats 2 as a very good way to handle all those cabals and groups. The book also often tells the GM that he can choose how to detail and weigh those threats. I prefer this to locked, hard coded backstories. Canon equals unfun in my experience, especially if players start to expect everything to follow their little, narrow vision of canon.



Big D was part of the ED plot - he offed himself to stop the horrors. Corp War was at the least influenced by Leo's tech in the Renraku struggle. And H2 was basically "save the world" - only to have the writers later make it clear that the sacrifice of the PCs was useless, and that it took a GD to stop the horrors. Talk about cheapening the whole adventure.

It's that sort of attitude I hate: Anything done by a mortal PC is meaningless. Even in an adventure that had the single goal of stopping the horrors, and a big "Horatio at the bridge scene" as a finale, it turns out, in the next metaplot novel, that it was all for naught, and enter plot device D to save the world, for real this time!

I'd rather not see this attitude seep into SR again. If they run such plots, then let the PCs matter.

Fuchs, you are not Dumpshock's Don Quichote, are you?


I think we came at an agreement that works for most poster in this thread.


You seem to forget that your earlier posts tend to give the feeling that you advocate for a total removal of IE plots. To whom some have probably overreacted either.


Then about the debate if SR needs ED plots to be shadowrun. It's dull. SR will be what authors makes of it.

And you'd probably can find a good numbers of Cyberpunk2020 fans who will confirm that. Ask them about their AltKulture.

Mwahahaha

poor of them...that was a real setting destroying thing

I agree with the first sentence as that was a snide comment. But the second two are pure exaggeration on your part. No one said anything of the sort.

Magic and tech are in equilibrium in Shadowrun. Or they're supposed to be if the mechanics work properly. One isn't superior to the other. IEs are to magic what atomic bombs are to tech. Rare and devastatingly powerful.

Not in CP2020...
...Try CR v3.

Do keep up

Personally, whether there are people pulling strings behind the scenes or there are thousand year old people walking around or this world is linked to another one from 5 thousand years ago is, I feel, something very few characters will know about, or care about [using guidance from the guy who tried to "get" immortality from an elf, virtually no-one will know about Immortals without serious research and characters without that as a knowledge skill won't know anything [CoC's Mythos knowledge is a nice guide]].

There seems to be a lot of players iffy about things their character wouldn't know...
...But it's a game - use the bits you like, and don't use the bits you don't like - is that so difficult ??

Two things:

Thing the first: dragons and immortal elves, when you boil them down to their purest form, are born no more advantaged then a troll, a drake, or a changeling. They do not get handed keys to the world and told, "here you go!" - they are simply born with the advantage of being physical and magically powerful or, in the case of the elves, immortal. That's about it.

Thing the second: Neither an elf nor a dragon is a mover or shaker unless you're discussing an area of interest for them. There is no Dragon / Elf conspiracy in the Sixth World. There are two nations of elves (neither of which like the other) and a bunch of cranky lizards playing lizard games.

Dunk and Harley were both focused on the Enemy; past that, Harley wants to be left alone to pull practical jokes on Ehran and make snide comments on message boards while Dunk worked towards becoming the Sixth World's Martin Luther King. Hestaby is an ecoactivist and Masaru is a radical and both have Dunkelzahn envy (though I love them both). Lofwyr simply plays for Lofwyr and probably enjoys his erm, draconian reputation. And, I just wanted to get this in here, Ryumyo and Lung are essentially Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader endlessly sparring in the Death Star. And if you want to get really into the Japanese culture thing, there's probably been yaoi written about them both.

None of these NPCs sit back and say, "let's take over the world today." No. Like corporations or governments or even Joe Mundane on the street, they're simply working at their own goals, albeing on a slightly more powerful level. Joe Mundane might not like the situation in Denver, but aside from writing his local, er, congressperson / representative (how does it work in Denver?) there's not lot more that he can do. Ghostwalker came in and established his own fiefdom to the place, but he did it through stealth and guerilla tactics. Whether or not he should have been able to is a bone in your craw, I understand, but my suspension of belief was little broken. Honestly, my thought was, "holy shit! I bet they didn't see that coming!" That point has been argued to death however and does not need to come up once again.

Can dragons or IEs get taken down a peg or two? Can you kill the President (hello American Government spybots! I live in Boston Massachusetts and gladly pay my taxes every year!)? Can the Joker occasionally hit Batman in the face with a cream pie? Of course. But to do so you must have careful preparations established, you must be running countless contingency plans, and you have to have some degree of luck. That's why its hard to establish hard and fast rules for dealing with Great Dragons and Immortal Elves - they play on a field that requires that much more planning and consideration to play on yourself.

Unless of course you want to go the Exalted route and devote two pages to an NPC (anyone else read / seen the stuff for Dreams of a First Age?) or write a paragraph o' stats for d20. I mean, that's your call. The rules for Prime Runners are right there in your testimonial (thanks Aaron). But leaving them open to interpretation is a little easier, IMO.

AAaand I just wasted an hour of company time. :/

Which is why I have been repeatedly posting that a "make them as powerful, or weak, as you prefer" is a better line in a "threats 3" sourcebook, than "they are all-powerful and no PC can take them".

I mean't that a bunch of CP2020 fans must have been very happy when they discovered their 203X (woahahaha that's laughable either) setting.


ohhh poor of them...

One thing that I've noted about the IEs and GDs is how their fans seems to think that they're immortal because of Gumdrop Goodness and Marshmallow Merriment. These guys are rare as hell, the spells (an assumption on my part, of course, because they don't call Joe Blow Elf an "Immortal Elf") are not listed or there would be a huge line of bitchass richies asking to live forever for the low, low cost of 100M each, and these guys don't seem to be all that nice when it comes right down to brass tacks.

Anyone ever consider that they're as powerful and long lived as they are because they were more ruthless and generally unpleasant than everyone else going for the top slots?

You have been saying that, yes. But that's in-between the screeds of "They're too powerful! They're in every plot! There's an Immortal Elf conspiracy!"

There has been no book written that says that these npcs are too powerful for players. What has been written is thusly: "This NPC is better served as a plot device than an NPC worth scripting up in the random case a player decides to try and off them."

Ask yourself this: is there an adventure specifically written, then deals with assassinating one of these types? No? Then why does it matter if they have stats or not? If you are planning on writing up said adventure, then guess what? You have to stat them up using the Prime Runner guidelines as at least, um, guidelines.

Again - this is a mountain out of an anthill.

Quite possible. Or perhaps the simple fact of being born Immortal rewires your mind in such a way that you're essentially so incredibly cunning and so incredibly in-tune with the forces of magic that you're untouchable by (meta)humans. They're not gods in that they can't create life at the snap of a finger and they have the same vanities and personality traits as mortals. But in my mind, an IE or a GD (and an IE is as rare as a GD) is a terrifying force of meta-nature and when one goes off it's like Hiroshima. The ramifications are devastating.

I don't believe that any IEs were Leonardo di Vinci or any other famous historical person. That's just phoney-balony Matrix rumoring and general IE disinformation seeding. The DC Comics character Vandal Savage would be a more appropriate comparison.

psychophipps in my campaigns the immortals either went to sleep shortly after the dragons did or survived the downcycle by engauging in rituals seeped in blood magic in order to keep just enough mana to stay awake, Vald the Impaler and the Countess who bathed in the blood of her maids in order to stay young are far more likely to be examples of Fifth Age Immortals than Da Vinci or Queen Elizabeth, at least in my mind...

But then again, I also subscribe to the idea that being immortal does not make you a Godling who is a master of every possible skill imaginable, it just makes you really, really old.

That's why I've always taken novels with a grain (or two) of salt. They seldom if ever follow the published rules. I thought everyone at least knew if not understood that.

Why?

Because it often interferes with telling a good story. Novels are about telling a good story. But much in the same vein as I feel about movie critics, I find myself expressing disdain towards those who slam the novels. Why are you picking nits about something that emphatically DOES NOT CARE about those nits?

I accept that novels and movies are about telling a good (hopefully) story that I hope is entertaining. I don't have the expectation of 110% rules adherence just because it's about the same universe as a game I play. That is why I find the kevetching about 'Mary Sue' so distasteful. Does it really matter if the story being told is good?

In my opinion, no it does not. If I am made to feel my money was well spent on that entertainment, then it doesn't matter what they did and how they did it. So you didn't like the novels. Big deal. There are plenty of novels that I don't care for or flat out don't like. Doesn't mean all novels are bad or 'Mary Sue' fests.

The funny thing is, after having read some ED stuff and the Harlequin adventures, I came away with the impression there was more to the story than was being let on and forces were at work beyond the imagination of the current 6th World experts. That is a good thing. Mystery, Surprise, & Suspense are always good things to have in a Universe. Hey, So & So over there isn't following the same rules as we are. Why? What makes him special and able to do things we cannot? Can we eventually do the same? and so on.

Do those have anything to do with novels? No. Novels are about telling a story within a setting. They aren't about game universes, rules, and future options.

Now if the new line of novels comes out with the disclaimer that they **WILL** follow Game Universe Rules and be Canon, then I will expect the authors to provide just that along with a good story. None of the previous novels to my knowledge ever stated that sort of requirement.

So why again are unfounded expectations being levied against something that was NOT made to follow those expectations?

Where-as when I read a novel based off an existing universe I expect the author to stick with the rules of said universe and not delve into his/her own creation.

Basically it is the same reaction I would have if a novel that claimed to be set during the real life Cold War suddenly introduced a character who used rayguns and teleportation, whether or not the story is good, it damn well doesn't take place in the setting the author claims.

*EDIT*

Or if a Star Wars novel decided to visit Hogworts and borrow Potter's invisible cloak and broomstick...

That last part is what troubles me. I'd have been far more interested in the Tir if if had been founded by normal elves seeking out a racial identity. Sure, let them be given links to a former world (like the Sperethiel language) but not a bunch of IEs hardwired into the nation's formation. Oh well...

I actually agree with this as seeing the Tir as a sort of parallel to Israel would have been quite interesting. But, oh well, I deal with the cards I'm given.

While I can see the IEs being behind this at the start ("Hey! We deserve these lands! None of these lessers will ever rule it in the kind, benevolent way that we could!") politics are politics and I can see the situation having steadily moved away from the original ideal and more towards whatever groupthink befell a majority of the council. Plus, having dragons involved is certainly a good way to throw a monkey wrench into the whole deal.

I think Tairngire was basically elves looking to form a nation whole their own; NaNoG is what you get when a civilization that's been sleeping for over a hundred centuries wakes up and goes, "yo, give us our land back yo."

This thread has gone on far past any point of being useful. It's degenerated into pointless bickering and circular talk that I'm tired of seeing. If you have some other point of discussion tangent to this that you'd like to continue in another thread, feel free. If you want to continue the ceaseless bickering about IEs and their roles in history, their role as unkillable NPCs, and so on, do it in PM, or we'll lock it down again.

Thank you, have a nice day.