I think it pretty obvious at this point that we're dealing with Promoted Fanboys - but are we Running The Asylum? Has terminal Contuinity Porn set in? Are Our Dragons really that Different?

Most importantly, do you agree?

That Shadowrun page is a great read! I'm going to have to look through these more when I get out of work.

--Promoted Fanboy

Awesome.

You know, Shadowrun's with its IE's suffer from a serious case of Our Elves Are Better. I don't know about other people, but I've never really gotten off on the whole IE thing. Sometimes it just seems like a case of canon writers saying, "Your character will never be as good as my character. Ever."

The real question here is what is Ancient History trying to distract us all away from? Heavens knows it's almost impossible to just "browse" that wiki for anything less than several hours in a sitting...

DONT CLICK ANY LINKS!
It destroys your life! It makes you sensitive to the flow of plot and canon! You think that's good but it isn't! Nothing is fun anymore! STOP!

QFT.

Everything on that site is a link to another funny/interesting article.

Don't you have a Shadowrun in Space book to be writing?

-paws

There is an occasional problem with the continuity porn. At some point you have to say "This was dumb, let's pretend we didn't go there".

Oh, and don't ever click on any of these links when you are on a deadline.

Is TVtropes.org written by anyone else but anime/manga nerds? It's like when I go to Wikipedia to look up info on the Israeli Mob and all I find are article stubs... but oh I can find anything and everything about Green Lantern.

EDIT: Of course it is and they admitted it.

I challenge anyone to name an RPG franchise that's over fifteen years old that isn't being written by the players. I wouldn't say Shadowrun has fallen into the realm of Continuity Porn; unlike mainstream superhero comics I can pick up the core BBB and know all I really need to know to play the game. Anything published that's a shout-out to previous sourcebooks usually makes sense in-context without a detailed explanation. I didn't know what a "shedim" was at first but in-context I understood it was some sort of zombie. There are examples of Running the Asylum. But as they aren't to the detriment of the game or hit the realm of the ridiculous, I don't sweat them, and can usual forgive writers' pet characters. No one is innocent of this so I'm not going to point fingers.

Gamers turn conservative and scream about fanboyism when there's any change to the status quo but it's usually over something completely minute. I typically equate them to the loon who screamed at Warren Ellis during a convention for killing the completely fictional character of Fahrenheit in Stormwatch because he was "in love with her." If someone complains that Element XYZ is gone, I'm usually thinking it's because he wants to make sweet, sweet love to it.

That page is allmost as bad as using wiki to find out things about people from marvel/dc universe <.<
one link leads to another, and after some hours you are still not back at square one.

Highlander II.

- J.

What are you talking about? There was no Highlander II.

I find it actually makes things more fun. Embrace the madness.

Honestly, no. I know. What I did in Shadows of Asia was pure Continuity Porn. I did not stop even half a second to ask myself which corps would make a good materials for game masters. Hopefully, I quit freelancing right after that

EDIT : Totally in love with that website by the way. I'm probably gonna spend days there, considering my trope for narrative structure theory.

I still think our dragons aren't /that/ different.

AhhhhhSURGE what?

SR could do for some Crisis on Infinite (Sixth) Worlds to get rid of the worlds where SURGE and Earthdawn happened.

Then after 20 years have passed Harlequin can return from the dead as part of another crisis event.

Nope. they are actually quite the same as in other fantasy games. Ancient, superintelligent, superpowered masterminds on crack who are all "Well look at those small pitful creatures around me."
I'd actually love to see a feral Dragon in SR with nothing more in mind but utter destruction and the power to pull it off.

Aden is the closest thing to that in SR cannon. He's not mindless, but he sure likes to promote chaos and has been known to level a city or two in his day.

Lurking Troper. So far I've found a LOT that weren't on the Wiki previously:

--AI Is A Crapshoot (DEUS.)
--Blade Below The Arm
--Cyberspace
--Did Not Do The Research
--Heroic Sociopath (I.E., EVERYONE.)
--Hollywood Hacking
--Japan Takes Over The World
--More Dakka
--Psycho For Hire (WHY IS THIS MISSING?!)
--Street Samurai (AND THIS?!)
--Virtual Ghost (Ghosts in the Machine)

EDIT: Edited them in.

I honestly have no fraggin clue why people hate SURGE so much.

Why all the hate people?

Eh. Its been hashed out many times before. Suffice to say its my all-time least favorite timeline development and if I had to choose something to be retconned out of existence, SURGE would be it hands down. Just my opinion.

Right, but WHY?

Because if I wanted to roleplay the Mos Eisley Cantina scene from Star Wars I wouldn't be playing SR. Its just doesn't fit my vision of the world. Ask others why they dislike IEs or why they prefer the term decker to hackers or why they like playing street sams over magicians. Its just an opinion. But like I said, you are welcome to read any of the existing threads that hash out peoples' reasons. Thats not what *this* thread is about.

Oh, no, it's fine. It's just that "I don't like it." "Why?" "Because I don't like it." didn't seem that helpful.

Wyverns, Sea Serpents, young Dragons all fit the role of feral and powerful.

But mindless dragons is its own trope, so you're screwed either way.

Well . . we HAVE a Party-Guy kinda Dragon O.o
And one who goes about his job as every metahuman that has a job does too.
and carries children around on his back, if they ask him nice. o.O
Yeah, i loved those little things, just as i love Dragons of the Sixth World ^^

Quite.



Most likely.



Yes.



Probably. One was president, they are telepathic, they aren't Color Coded For Your Convenience, and generally aren't the Big Bad.

As for SR's page, last time I read it, yes.



They have a page for that.

Rule Of Cool - Monofilament CHAINSAWS

Win.

Next someone is gonna claim they made a TV series...

My "Problem" with tropes is, that i lurked there many (quite productive) hours of my life and now i can't watch a movie/go to the theatre/etc and not facepalm at some moment and think "Just like trope XXX". It's horrible in an awesome kind, more often an "I always expect an ambush!" moment.
No, Tropes are fun, but you should be prepared that it takes most surprises. One reason i decided to like Bioshock was, that the big Twist DID surprise me (tough i spoilered it, nevertheless it was a twist where i sat there and thought "What a clever idea!").
I hope someday i can pull off something similar in Shadowrun or roleplaying in general.


Or a cartoon...

Grr... I was about to go to bed last night, and then I decided "oh, i'll check DS one more time" I didn't get to bed until 3am somehow... Thanks Uncle Ancient...

At least it's friday and we're playing SR(second) tonight =D

Wasn't there a dragon in Europe that had been poisoned to the point of insanity by radiation (or similar toxic environment)?

-paws

For the truth. This is my favorite though:

Mexico Called, They Want Texas Back.

Just look at the wonder that is that title.

Also, you can totally tell that the SR entry was written by people only half-aware of the game.

They could just be players who aren't as stick-in-the-asylum-forever obsessed like we are.

I've been working on it. Get Known, and start Editing!

The only difference between a SR dragon and a D&D dragon is that SR dragons drink vermouth and smell of Clive Christian's Imperial Majesty.

The kinda-cool thing about that site is that it gives you an unintentional crash-course in marketing and branding; they're all about tropes. After I earned my degree in design I couldn't watch television without saying, "Oh, in this commercial they're plugging Trope X into Trope Y."

That was a big one for GDW's Twilight:2000/2300AD. And I agree they may only be half-aware of SR as there are some seriously obvious ones they missed: Blood Sport (Combat Biking, Urban Brawl, Court Ball), Artificial Limbs, Balkanize Me, Cool But Inefficient (Swords v. guns? Really?), Inside a Computer System, Middle Eastern Coalition (Alliance for Allah), New Neo City (Metropole, Neo-Tokyo, et. all), and Post Modern Magik. I can't find the trope for Super-Tuberculosis That Kills 1/4th of the Planet but the World War III trope comes close.

Shadowrun needs more Patrick Stewart Speeches.

The difference between Shadowrun and DnD dragons is that Shadowrun realizes that they're fsking characters, not just one-stop-shopping for gold, trinkets, and info. Each of the Greats and the few mature dragons we've seen have had plans, goals, personalities, things they're looking to accomplish. Lofy set himself up as a business tycoon. Dunk was a Dragon of the People. Lung and Ryumyo are master and apprentice, eternally bickering. They're people, not loot factories, which is why so many of us (well, okay, me in particular) get attached to the scaly ones.

And of course you can do the same in DnD, but the emphasis is different there. Of course, that's down to different design goals and such.

Damn it, I'm supposed to be working!

SR dragons also don't try to fit themselves into rooms that are too small for them (re: every Gary Gygax dungeon ever).

Firewing?
Dead.
Shot down over the Sox, fell into the sox, mutasted into toxic dragon and got nuked from orbit to be sure.

Look, that's all Tolkein's fault.

Could be. My memory fails me. (Yet again.)

-paws

That, and so many other things.

That website is what got me re-interested in Shadowrun, so don't knock it.

And it destroyed my life.

*sniff*

Monster Manual....5? I think it was introduced the Xorvintaal Dragon template. Basically it turns DnD dragons into evil overlords plotting each other's subjugation. The GM determines the rules of Xorvintaal as he sees fit, assuming he needs to.

Rifts, Traveller.

Okay, why do you need a template? Give the stupid dragon some character.

I dislike 3.* more and more.

Because they didn't want to write out all the stats. It's "take a dragon and do this to it." (It should be noted that Xorvintaal dragon lose spellcasting, but what they get in return more than makes up for a few sorcerer levels, like "on death, don't" (actually, when they fall below 0 HP they are catatonic and have regeneration ~50 until at full health then wake up, unless what killed them specifically mutilates the body when its done)).

I still remember running a published dungeon back in the day that was pretty clearly randomly generated. Chock full of random dead ends, etc.

At one point I'd got to a section I hadn't fully read up on and was winging it a bit. Room description indicated there was an irate ancient red dragon in there.

Checked the map. It was a 10'x10' room.

After recomposing myself after the inevitable gigglefit, I told the players when they opened the door that they just saw an enormous angry looking eye.

They looked at it. It looked at them.

They quietly closed the door and moved on.

"I guess we know why it's irate."


-karma

Which one? The one in "Menage a Troi" in Front of the whole bridge?


Rumor has it that she is ... oh my god ... Still Alive (and believe me i am still alive...)