How come I read that so many people get up in arms over the continuing meta plot involving characters, items, and events from Earthdawn? I was talking to a member of my gaming group last night and he said the one thing he didn't really care for in SR was the continuing ED metaplot. I also see posters here who get put off by the mention of these things. So here's my question:

Shouldn't this be a major selling point for the Shadowrun universe? I mean, the thing that drew me to SR was the richly detailed world where all these forces of magic and tech are colliding and competing with each other. There is a full history that spans an entirely different game to compliment it too. From what I hear, there is another one being added to the mix to chronicle the 8th world.

That said, why don't those who complain go play some other game with a universal system if they want to create a standard cyberpunk realm without mythology and history? Why stick it out with SR if one wants to complain about the world and the plot when the story develops? Isn't that the point of a specific setting, is to enjoy it? I'm just trying to get input here because I guess I really can't wrap my mind around this.

The whole ED crossover has been stopped dead, or very downplayed in SR4...
...As has much of everything developed in SR1-3.

SR 4 on its own is an ok system...
...But is not really a continuation of SR 1-3.

The only thing, to my mind, that made SR worth playing was the history/metaplot.

Without it, SR is yet another cyberpunk game, and not a very good one...
...Compared to the others out there - Corporation, CP2020, TORG, Dark Heresy, Deus Ex Machina, HERO, GURPS.

I liked the allusions to the Fourth World.

I hated how everything in the Sixth World was just a plot from someone's Mary Sue from the Fourth World.

I really don't see the problem at all. The Meta-plot is there for those that like it, but is easily ignorable by those that are not interested in that type of thing. I am of the opinion that the inclusion of references to the Fourth World and the like serve to enrich the setting, whereas to discontinue any such references would not actually add anything to the game world.

I like the ED connections, I´m already running an old-artifacts campaign. That has to be the first time I´m looking forward to some "adventure" books.

And nowadays ignoring the references is pretty easy - you have to know what you are looking for in some cases.

the only thing i don't like about the ED Metaplot is, that all of it is basically OMGWTF exalted like end off the world armageddon apocalypse stuff . . well, aside from being about some mary sue from the 4th world *snickers*
if it were just slighty lower-scale, i could probably live well enough with it . .

Personally I like the Earthdawn connection, because:

1. It makes it easier for me to accept game concepts like Edge and Karma when they are "real".

2. Lets you have some fun with deep dark secrets and the like. Which are very in genre.

However it's purely optional and I would never make it a selling point. I find it deliciously fun when I as the GM am the only one with a clue as to the connection. Especially if I have people who have played both games because I can slowly drop hints and watch their reactions when they "get it" for the first time.

And yes I agree that the deep backstory is critical to why Shadowrun is good. To elaborate on why it's because people who already understand the city and setting can interact on a different level with the game world than some new dungeon crawlers. And compared to other games in the genre I find the "three worlds" of Shadowrun play out better on the table. Anybody who played with experienced CP2020 players and discovered the team was five solos knows what I'm talking about.

SR1 was around before ED and did just fine without the connections. Now people buy into SR4 without knowing of the connections. I think it's safe to say that the connections need not be there to make an enjoyable game setting.

That's definitely a big hindrance now for the connections now. Earthdawn is no longer in the hands of the same people working on Shadowrun and neither is required or even expected to follow the storylines or limitations the other system and worlds cover. That also makes it hard for new players to get their hands (or even catch) on to the references between the two settings.

True statement, but I feel like the ED connections are a big part of the overall setting. A runner crew in Seattle, Berlin, or Tokyo can get by just fine without ever knowing why Ghostwalker and Lofwyr don't like each other or what half the bequests in Dunklezahn's Will mean. But for those of us who like the big picture, these thousands-of-years-old ties between some of the movers & shakers are key.

True, and since the backstory is generally lost, that makes the ED-links seem more like Mary Sues than ever. I'd rather see the links be non-sapients (things, places, writings discovered. etc.) just to avoid the crap we have seen.

What I hated about the crossover was less that it was there but more how it was tied in. As a mere shadowrunner you're just a spectator to the forces that collide (if you're even aware of them) when it's all about IEs, dragons and metaplanar beings that want to eat your brain (come to think of it, this sounds like Cthulhu).
I like how they downplayed the connection in SR4 because it gave you room to reinterpret things and you didn't have to beat new players over the head with all that metaplot.
If they reintroduce it, I just hope they make the connection more approachable for common 400BP groups.
Oh, and kill off some IEs!

You're not always just supposed to be a spectator. However you probably will be if you're trying to get involved fresh out of the box.

I don't have a problem with that at all. I like the ED crossover stuff the most for when your players are slipping into the "been there, run that" mentality and cash and karma don't burn in their pockets like they used to. Then it's time to take it up a notch. Play Harlequins Back or pick something on the scale of one of the novels.

Going along the SR4 downplay a bit...

Hasn't this mostly been because of the pushing for core rules to establish a complete 4ed? I mean, it's only proper that we won't really start seeing fluff and metaplot until we get all the bases covered out of the gate, right? Now's the time to really start exploring where things stand 2072 in relation to ED and the shape of things to come (as reflected in the Sept Chat).

I guess another branch to the question would be; Why does everyone really hate the Immortal Elves and Draconic machinations so much? I mean, if you had to much influence over key players and plot, wouldn't that kill a lot of the helplessness and dystopian feel of what a Shadowrunner really is?

What's all this "Mary Sue" nonsense being tossed about? Which NPCs were wish-fulfillment fantasies for the developers?

You mean like the all-powerful Immortal Elves or Great Dragons who the immeasureable power of Plot Device to do everything and everything in the Sixth World? (And if anyone tries to tell me Harlequinn wasn't one of the original designer's characters, I will backhand you so hard.)

*LOL*

I agree completely. It's like the classic first Harlequin adventure. Sure, you're doing stuff but you're also playing back fiddle to an pair of uber-mages and their Clash of the Titans. The whole thing seemed like you were there just so the GM can read off the poofy meta-plot bits at you between your group's die rolls.

The Cthulu(-lite) description is also pretty accurate, IMO. Yeah, they're technically different but the Horrors are a bit blatant in the ol' knockoff for us Cthulu players not to say, "Umm...I thought this game used d100% for task resolution. WTH?!?"

And SURGEd is such a blatant excuse to "randomly" add the old ED-type meta-variants as to be...well...blatant. And annoying. And frustrating. And totally making me kinda pissed off right now so I'll head off to my SR game with a metaplot that I think is fresh as hell and not blatant, annoying, and frustrating.

I'm just going to throw this one out there, but pretty much everybody who wrote, or was associated with writing, any of those things isn't lined up to write the Next Couple Things. They're not even in the freelancer pool. In fact, most of them havenae even been writing for SR4. So bear it in mind when I say efforts are being made to do things differently this time around.

How is that different from any other run? I mean, Renraku hires you to steak a bit of paydata from Ares or vice-versa, it isn't like you'll end up equal in power to a megacorp yourself by the end of the adventure. The entire premise of the game is that the PCs are paid pawns in games of global intrigue between powerful rivals. Usually, those rivals are megacorps.

Because working for the megacorps doesn't involve a tie-in to a failed, and now defunct except to the current DevGrp, fantasy game and setting?

The megacorps are powerful because they're these huge organizations with tons of employees, money, and political clout. You can take this information to create leverage and/or to maneuver around them to keep them from squishing you like a bug.

IEs, dragons, and metaplanar wankery, however, are "cool" because they're...well...IEs, dragons, and metaplanar wankery. They tend to lack non-metaplot back story, have no real weakness for a SR group to exploit, and don't squish you like a bug because it's not in ther module and you're beneath their notice.

Is it more fun as a player to not be squished like a bug by a huge megalithic organization because you're just that damn slick or to not be squished like a bug because you're so beneath the (insert metaplot uber-baddass here)'s notice that it's not worth the casual muscular flexing that would make your entire party esplodie simultaneously?

Like having spells and cycles of magic already doesn't tie the game setting the other events of ED and soon Equinox? Lets face it, if it weren't for the magic and the metaplot, Shadowrun would just be Cybperpunk2020, Cyberhero, or any other random cyberpunk setting RPG. These uses of magic and history and the mixing of tech and the mystic are what makes this realm and game really have staying power. I mean, take a look at which games had people play them when cyberpunk was a fashionable trend and which game has a growing and faithful audience.

Immortal Elves and Dragons playing power games has been part of Shadowrun since day one. So has the cycle of magic, and the existence of the Fourth World.

Earthdawn was created from the very beginning as Shadowrun's Fourth World. This was very clear to me the moment I read the ED core book. The fact that FASA was usually coy about the connection in press releases does not remove or lesson the obvious connection.

See "Humans and the Cycle of Magic", published in 1989 for the first detail on what was published as Earthdawn in 1993.

That sums it up. I got nothing about links to the past, artifacts, and similar stuff, but don't turn the world into a playground for stupid uber-NPCs from the past. In past editions, IEs and GDs were much too common, and far too many plots were linked to them. They should be much more in the "background", up to individual GMs if they play a prominent role in SR or not.

The trouble is that Earthdawn doesn't really fit Earth's past - it would have been better off as its own, separate world. But somewhere along the line, some of the developers thought it would be cute to make these subtle little tie-ins to Earthdawn, whether it logically fit or not. And that's all it is. You don't need to have Earthdawn to have Shadowrun - you only need a mythical Fourth Age, and the resurgence of magic.

The GM that run HQ1 for us was not that good an english speaker or reader, and while that meant some horrible railroading in one part, it allowed us to have our cybertroll spend 20 karma on buying successes, knock out Ehran the scribe in hand to hand combat and drag his unconscious, tied up butt to Harlequin with a "Her'es the guy you wanted, where's our money?".

Only time IEs added to the game in my experience and opinion.

That's what I do. My own campaign's "4th age" is similar to Gold Digger's (from Fred Perry) past magical age.

Making the IEs less powerful by default (the fans can always up the power and make them mary sues again), and less movers and shakers, would work best IMHO to have both sides have their fun.

For me the Shadowrun universe is a universe where the fantasy "lost" to the cyberpunk: dragons don't live in caves on top of treasures piles but run megacorps or countries. Orks and trolls aren't mindless brutes (yes I know they aren't in ED either), but they are minorities faced with prejudice. You could replace them with today's minorities and have nearly the same game. On the opposite, if you replace them with wild savage hordes attacking humans cities or even with civilized populations with their own territories, it wouldn't be Shadowrun.
The trouble with most of the ED metaplot is that it tends to turn the game into a classic fantasy game set in a future world.

Pretty much nails it.

Gotta agree here as well, my man. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for the lack of an Earthdawn tie-in to suddenly make the SR world non-playable. Immortal elves, dragons, and metaplanar wankery be damned! I can run a great SR game without a single mention of the bugs on top of the big three mentioned above.

The harsh reality is that this game doesn't even need a backstory for the most part, and certainly not one as in-depth as the one provided. Any GM out there could simply make stuff upon the fly to answer the player's questions about where the magic came from, who the president is, why the US got split up. Having it all out there is kind of nice in that these questions are basically answered but adding the meta-plot to the history also just buttonholes the GM into either going with the flow that they think sucks and doesn't fit their campaign or to tell the players that their world is different than the one provided so the players come up with more questions as to what else is different.

I would have been completely happy with:
"60 or so years ago a great mystic ritual by a powerful Native American shaman and his followers reopened the gates to magic in the world. When this happened, the magics also started changing segments of the human population into Elves, Orks, Trolls, and Dwarves. Corporations, though trickery and raw finacial power, have attained legal extraterritoriality and run things largely through financial clout and corruption. Dragons, long thought gone, are again scheming their way to the top while long thought dead mages reawaken to a world with new technology and new horizons to resume their machinations. Governments have risen and fallen due to the Native tribes regaining their lands and financial and factional chaos fed by the return of magics to the world.
The characters, a group of individuals who work as deniable assets to the various factions throughout the world, are a group of underground warriors, hackers, mages, and vehicular experts who utilize the best training, magic, and cyberware to maintain their edge on the mean streets of 2070. Their goals vary, but all are willing to risk it all for the street cred, the money, or the power to make a difference in the world of Shadowrun."

Clear, to the point, no metaplot horseshit to wade through and argue about, and plenty of room for the GM to do their thing.

Took me less than 20 minutes.

Good for you! Why do you feel that in order to enjoy the game, it is necessary for the developers to remove all reference to stuff others find entertaining, instead of merely ignoring the parts you don't like?

At some of the people who would know. What's the legal status of tie ins? I.e if a writer wanted to add in one of the immortal elves from earlier editions or the novels could they? Could you have a FASA era horror pop up and actually name them?

I've always had somewhat mixed feeling on the power level of the immortal elves (for those of you who don't know Harlequins stats were given roughly as "no you can't beat him, so we're not giving you the info")

On the one hand I can see how that would annoy people. On the other the fact is that it'd involve a lot of special rules and no matter how badass you try and make him some 16 year old mouthbreathing GM isn't going to run them with an iota of the tactical skill that should be in place. Meaning they're going to get take out by the players as often as not.


On the corp thing. There's something I call lazy GM theory. Which in part means that GMs don't tend to run large numbers of weaker oponents well and will tend to avoid it. (Which means if I'm feeling power gamy I design chars to take down single very tough opponents) Sure a corp could in theory squish the players but in practice PCs tend to run roughshod over them. A single very powerful entity however they'll be scared of.

Three words, Fortune: The. Inter. Nets.

As to ED: I never much cared for the tie-in, I stopped paying attention after Dunkelzahn's Will (which was an interesting premise in and by itself) turned into the starting point for a free-for-all pile-up of heroic fantasy tropes that turned the subtle and accessible metaplot of SR into a theme-park ride. I'm perfectly fine with the initial Fourth World - Sixth World connection, and don't mind seeing the occasional reference, but as soon as I see the return of "press A to stand back and watch pompous NPCs save the world"-metaplot, I swear, I'm gonna get all over the internet and rant so hard!

Amen.

I have always loved the whole IE/Dragon wankery.

I love Harlequin for his realism.

Both mechanics and character. Realistically, given SR's mechanics and history, people like Harlequin should be stupendously powerful compared to anyone born in the sixth world and should be crazy as a sackful of monkeys on acid. Just because you think such a power imbalance is inappropriate does not alter this fact.

I very much believe that lack of balance is not a good reason to change otherwise coherent rules. In fact that asymmetry in power levels introduces true realism to a game.

Because in the past, in order to ignore the uber-NPC fanservice, you'd have to ignore or rewrite just about every plot from FASA.

Is it too much to ask to not spread the IE relics out into every part of the world, but contain them so that those who want them can use them, and the rest doesn't have to redo the whole world? We really do not need to have a pointy-eared mary sue being behind every major plot.

And if you bring IEs into this, make them killable. It was the worst amount of mary sueing to read "the PCs can't take those people on" in H1.

Realism? I'll give you a quote from the game system where gods walk the earth, and people tangle with demon princes, D&D:

"A dagger to the eye is a dagger to the eye."

Even here you have the "no matter how tough, it can be killed" rule.

An .50 BMG bullet to the head should kill anyone. Having mary sues in the game is bad for the game as a whole.

Hey, I'm all for people who dig the back story. I was pointing out that you don't need one as long and in-depth as the one in SR4 to run the game well, if at all. If they gave us what I wrote above, some basic info on the various megacorps and what they do, and the rest of the book's listings for rulez/gearz/powerz/spellz then there wouldn't be a single reason why the game couldn't be played and fun be had.

Some people here, however, seem to think that the metaplot backstory is written on stone tablets by the finger of GAWD himself and fear His righteous wrath that will make all of their dice, except their d12s, roll badly until all of their characters die the death of a thousand dogs, Amen.

And not to put a too fine point on it - a campaign where IEs can be killed by players is not a bad campaign. It's not even an unrealistic campaign. It's just a campaign where people have fun in ways some might not like, and it might be a campaign where the "He's a genius, he should see through all plots" cuts both ways - as one poster on EN world put in his signature "Those people who claim that Dragons are so smart they should be able to counter all plans of the PCs never seem to grant the same leeway to the wizard PC with superhuman intelligence."

True, but there'd be far fewer adventure seeds and material to draw from.

I adore the metaplot and the background in the game for the most part. It's what breathes life into it as a whole. I just hate how much focus the old Earthdawn god-beings received, how much they belittle the rest of the setting, and how everything was basically orbiting around their existance. The occasional hint was fine. Dunkelzahn sacrifice to save the universe from the Horrors, the creation of a new Mary Sue godling-drake, the resulting chaos from his will, and so on and so forth... well, that wasn't so great to me. The Atlantean Foundation finding really interesting things? That was much, much cooler. And, you know, fitting for the game as a whole. Dunkelzahn's Will was such a blatant "omfg we r 2 maek run ideaz LOLZ!" that it just really turned me off to the entire thing. Things don't have to be realistic to be believable, but some of the God-like decrees Dunkelzahn made in his will literally sickened me.

Now if Dunkelzahn had actually been assassinated, and especially if he was assassinated by a group of shadowrunners? That would have been fucking AWESOME. But alas, we couldn't have that. (Unless you play in my version of the world, that is.)

And I'm not even going to get into Harlequen, Alachia, Ehran or the other immortal elves. I mean fuck, is there any famous and influential historical figure that wasn't a God damned immortal elf in disguise?

Is that so? I assume that you could call Super Tuesday fine because of the final results. Mob War is mundane, UB/Bug City don´t even have connections IIRC. The whole Arcology story stands on pretty mundane feet. You´d have to ignore 2*Harlequin, BigD´s Testament, DotsW, a few Threats writeups, and a few novels? There is plenty of choice besides that on my bookshelf.

Well that's certainly an opinion and a common one at that.

I've yet to see anyone actually make a good argument in support of it. Merely stating it appears to be good enough....


As to killability, have you seen the PC's in the Fields of Fire thread? That's only 1000 Karma.

Physics and Magic don't mix well.

The whole Leonardo deal and its consequences. Aztechnology. Denver. The Tirs. There's a whole lot of stuff shaped by "oh, it's important, so we need a GD/IE" fanservice.

Earthdawn is still going strong, actually. In fact, there are currently two (soon to be three) separate editions of it being published right now.

DM PCs running the show is a trope very much hated by a lot of roleplayers. Just check the Forgotten Realms critism. Or play with a DM that likes to show off the uber NPCs.

Also, stating that "No matter what, the PCs won't ever be able to kill X" is bad design - and probably rooted in fanboyism on part of the authors.

But the real point is, why go to the extremes and wreck the setting for a part of your player base if you can have your cake and eat it? Keep the IEs more low key, and those who like uber elves can boost them a bit and plant them behind everything and everyone, and those who dislike them can ignore them more easily.

There's really no reason at all to make IEs as commonplace and powerful as in the past. It's Shadowrun, not ED.

Good for them. Should I want to play ED I'll pick one up. But to quote one of my players "If I want to play medieval fantasy I can play D&D, I don't want to play medieval fantasy in Shadowrun."

How I always handled it was: The Immortal Elves are super intelligent, and see all these subtle, uber complex plots....but always miss the guy with truck full of dynamite...It is too simple. It goes against what they expect.

If the PCs DO fight an IE? I throw on it an Initiate grade of like 10, throw a few unique metamagics to represent their "Advanced knowledge of magic"(Yeah..my IEs only take drain from over cast spells..if they cast them as matrixes, which means they cannot be counterspelling that turn...) At the same time, there are ALWAYS limits. Sure, a protection spell against bullets may work for a time..but it CAN be battered down. They have to have time to react, as well....

Of course, how I handle them is really a "Dice and stats alone cannot win this..put the dice away and ROLEPLAY! Because, if we use dice, you lose...." Because, when all is said and done, you cannot really stat out things like what we saw in Worlds without End..but, damn! That was just cool..the image of one of the Tir Princes throwing up a shield and bullets melting in the air..

Sure you can stat that stuff out, it was called "bullet barrier" or "physical barrier", with some added fluff description. It's not as if IEs are some spcial butterflys, most are just clichees blown up with hot air, protected by author fiat (and usually author fiat from someone who thinks D&D's "The Complete Book of Elves" is a good base for Shadowrun).

Forgotten Leonardo. Yes, that one is out if you don´t like ED-immortals.

I for one am glad for the fanservice, so not seeing any issues in writing ED out of AzTech and the Tirs might be my POV "acting up" (You´d be ignoring the best part of the Aztlan sourcebook, but still). The whole Danaan network in TNO can be explained by a mundane, racist old-boys-network, complete with esoteric rituals on certain days. Where did I hear that before? AzTech is just a corp. Blood Sacrifice, dragons on top? Rumours.

Denver? I´d say leave the dragon where it is, but play it up as the crony of the PCC and the CAS. Maybe the PCC pays your runners handsomely if they manage to avert an Aztlan military attack on the dragon... 1)killability is the basic premise 2)death is averted by humans, for human interests.

Heck, you can have IEs in the setting. But making them (and GDs) run the whole world, or every major plot, is simply too much. Make them one group among many, and it works better.

The Ordo Maximus is a good example on how one can run and write a "scaleable" group. It can be as powerful, or as meddling and pulling strings behind the scenes, as the GM wants it to be, but it isn't "thrown into your face" every second book.

Not to mention that reading shadowtalk like that in the Aztlan Sourcebook that makes the IEs look like a bunch of bickering teenagers doesn't really help in making them palatable.

To imagine that those people would be running the planet turns the game into "Teenage Shadowrunners: The Animated Cartoon Series" aimed at the Staurday Morning audience.

On IE killability.

Personally I'd like to see them take the tone I've only seen in CP2020's "Listen up you Primitive Screwheads" It's like a traditional GM supplement type book but one where the writers berate the GMs for screwing up the game world so often in parts and things like that.

In short I'd like them to lay out the stats for the characters in question, and then have a paragraph where they say something along the lines of "And if you're a crappy strategist or just stupid they players will be able to kill this character". But at least the players have a chance.

Though especially in current editions you don't have to go magic to get your epic on. There has also been the whole AI shenanigans. And of course you always could do machinations of regular humans who own megacorps, however as I've said GMs tend to not be able to do that worth a hooey.