[This post will be spoilericious!]

A while ago I bought a copy of Harlequin's Back from a used book store and I've read through it.

Basically, I don't think I like it very much, because it is basically a big plot wagon with spiked wheels resembling a vehicle out of Mad Max: The Road Warrior. It's like a 1960s surreal-moralistic episode of Star Trek (remember the one where Kirk et al. end up in a Western setting they can't leave and which doesn't obey the laws of physics because someone wants to test how they react to threats?) but with more obnoxious preaching. Guess what, the way YOU remember the King Arthur legends isn't good enough, you have to accept and work with the pseudo-celtic version or else your character will be teabagged by all-powerful feminist NPCs. And there's nothing you are allowed to do about that or you character will DIE.

Having NPCs with skill levels of 40 is bullshit. What kind of joke is that? That right there, in print, says, "if the characters don't go along with the writer's ideas for this setting, crush them like bugs."

There is too much, "fudge the rolls, make them sweat, but make sure everything happens according to plan", to the point where I can't imagine the players wouldn't see through it. In the first place Harlequin is supposed to be so powerful he doesn't need stats, but then when he gets attacked by tentacle monsters he is supposed to fall down frothing. But then he's invincible again till a specific point where the PCs find him all naked and tortured and upside down. I basically don't see how any player who thinks isn't going to realize that Harlequin amounts to a "cinema scene" and not a real NPC with stats.

Basically I thought Harlequin's Back was the most sanctimonious, railroady, judgemental campaign I'd ever read in a RPG. And to top it all off with a cherry at the end it says that FASA still hasn't decided what happens at the end, but that it's still in the works and planning if the horrors will be part of the metaplot later or not. So what the hell, all that railroading and Celtic feminist beatdown was literally for nothing, because the writers have no idea what actually happened in the end. Great.

You're too picky. I liked it when we played through it. You're just jealous because Harlequin's Too Cool for Stats™. And Tom Dowd wanted to have PCs be able to take part in the metaplot, but he didn't want them to mess it up.

Unrelated to your post though; it was a good story.

You're not too picky. Harlequin's Back was a lot like some of the worst of the White Wolf/oWoD/Aberrant adventures: designed so that nothing the PCs did could push the plot off the rails and showcasing how 'uber-c00l' the writer's pet NPC is while they ooh and ahh at what the NPC is doing. It's like an official GMPC adventure.

- Eleint

What the fuck is this about ? What good / interesting / useful is this metaplot of yours if players aren't allowed to mess it up ? They aren't taking part in it if they aren't able to change the outcome ; they're just extras. If I want a good story, I'll read a goddamn novel, thank you very much. I'm gaming because I actually want to game, IE affect the outcome of events my character is a part of.

Well, its kind of a shitty excuse, but the point of the adventure is that you get to affect how it happens, if not what actually happens. I haven't played it, and it doesn't seem like a particularly fun adventure to me, but I can see how some people would find it appealing to be able to take part in world-shaking events like that.

Taking part in world-shaking events is fine, I don't play these kind of games but I certainly wouldn't mind. I just don't see the appeal of an adventure where stuff is going to happen, no matter what the PCs do, except for a handful of details. To me, it just looks like the writer is swinging around this huge NPC dick, just like the Forgotten Realms franchise used to do with the likes of Elminster and Drizzt. "Look how big and powerful my NPC is ! Don't you wish you were that cool ?"

While I hate "watch the plot go by" adventures as much as the next man, what published Adventures let you alter the course of the metaplot?

The answer should be none


BlueMax
/unless you count rigged elections
//the green revolution does not

This is why in general metaplot's not used much anymore in most RPGs. Most of the companies that were majorly into metaplot aren't anymore. I'm glad. I want to play a game, not read amateur authors' attempts at fiction.

As for taking part in world-shaping events, if the players and GM want that to happen, it's easily doable. Just have to run the campaign that way. Have PCs create their own Megacorp through lots of hard work and tons of Karma. Have them take down Lofwyr. Better than watching NPCs. There's nothing wrong with high-end games.

Or low end games. We had a gang campaign and the players did a good job of owning their hood. Mostly through social control and dependency. Now, take a Drug Cartel Metaplot, its going to push it into their hood. While I am all for the opposition pushing on the players, keeping them sharp, handwaving "THe players should know not to fight here and run like little chickendreks" gets old faster t...
Man it got old already.


BlueMax

Oh definitely. I'd love a low-end SR game based on a 'neighborhood' and 'weird events'. Probably by dropping the amount spendable on resources and putting a hard cap on magic (say Magic 3) and magical resources.

Actually, some companies did world-altering metaplots quite well - TORG for instance had info that you submitted which supposedly helped to shape the overall campaign. Don't they do something similar with the SR Missions ??


I think you might find that there are few low-level games because players whine that their characters aren't powerful enough. Low-level games have done quite well in the RPG hobby, up until quite recently and the prevalence of videogames and easy power-ups and levelling.

For most games, there's little difference in the characters between "low-level", "mid-level" and _high-level" apart from skill levels, attribute levels and the amount os damage they can dish out - they rarely behave differently, or act like people of relevant power level [D&D had some good stuff about playing a high level character].

I can't argue with you on that one.

Coincidentally, though, I always thought that Forgotten Realms was the most vibrant and alive of any of the D&D settings. I really like having the metaplot out there, and the iconic characters like that give a feeling of depth to the world. But an adventure that's so heavily involved with the iconic characters is usually bad news, as they're always going to take center stage.

I think having characters run into major players like Harlequin can potentially be very cool, but it has to be done carefully. And it certainly ought to be brief at most, lest the iconic character become too much the focus of the game. But a brief encounter can give players a sense of events happening in the overall world that are bigger than themselves. As long as the players are still controlling the destiny of their own characters and aren't too much railroaded by the metaplot, giving them the sense of bigger things can really make the game world seem alive.

Funny, as a GM I always found the concept of Harlequin fairly liberating.

I don't know about your game but there is almost always one pointless moron who's instant reaction to any Metaplot NPC is 'I shoot him in the face.'

Lulz.

Not.

Having explicit, black and white permission to crush the w*nker like the bug he/she was I found very liberating. I didn't have to listen to all the pointless bull-drek about how the PC's stat's were so much better than the NPC and therefore it was 'unfair' to protect the NPC from such random motivationless violence. No, no your stat's are not better, no you don't even stand a chance of 'getting lucky', not even a one in a million shot.

You have behaved like a pointless moron and gotten what you deserved, go make up a new character.

It is the perfect scenario for rpg noobs. It breaks them of some of their most annoying habits and forces them to consider doing some role-playing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a bit of power-playing but only if there is a good story to go along with it.

See, I cannot understand this logic at all. Wouldn't it be better to discuss the issue with them OOC rather than punishing them for possibly poor behavior ICly? That seems kind of passive aggressive to me. Act like adults, don't use uber-NPCs to 'punish' or to force them down a path you want, that's condenscending.

You would think.

But no.

Some people just aren't willing to listen, they need an in game reality check.

Harlequin was one of the very first scenarios to explicitly give the GM permission to do so. While the GM had always had that power it was tremendously helpful to have someone officially say 'You have the power, use it for good.'

It's not like it is limited to Harlequin. Go after any of the major SR NPC's and I'll bitch slap you back into the Fourth World.

Major NPC's are not Mount Everest, it is unacceptable to try to kill them just because they are there.

Come up with a decent motivation and a well thought out plan and then I'll probably bitch slap you anyways but I'll probably pull my punches a little. Persist after that and there might be an epic campaign in it.

Even the final sacrifice of the PCs in this adventure doesn't matter at all, it gets rendered useless by the Dragonheart trilogy. See how cool our uber-npc is, jump through our hoops, then sacrifice your character to save the world... but that's a lie, hur hur! Only special NPCs get to do that!

I still remember H1, where our inexperienced GM missed the page about "no one can touch the IEs, they are so pwoerful they don't get stats, just have them overpower the PCs if the act uppity", and so we managed to knock out Ehran and drag his butt to Harlequin during the last run like any other extraction target.

All I can say is ... wow. I'd never game with you. I find this sort of behavior entirely inappropriate. Have fun, I guess.

And I find this sort of response, what was that word you already used but I chose to ignore?

Oh, yes, condescending.

Debate the point made but keep your personal crap to yourself.

I ran this (HB) a few years ago, only I disabled the "PCs cant really affect anything worthwhile" portions of the adventure.
Needless to say they failed.
Their new characters are dealing with the ramifications of what happened to the world as a result. A 10 year planetwide war resulting in a apocalyptic shadowrun setting where the Enemy mercilessly hunt the weak and the peoples of the world have lost hope. The corporate court has set itself up on the Lunar surface, salvaging what it can of Earth's resources and leaving untold millions of people to rot planetside.

The players love it.

I have a very strange group.

Edit: I agree, HB can be a very heavy-handed adventure.

This is interesting. Shadowrun mixed with post-apoc. Not sure I'd personally enjoy it, but an interesting way to take the game. How do people survie on the moon? Did you tweak the whole Mana Void thing in space, or what?

The only people with problems in Space are magically active.
Everybody else only has to deal with no gravity, no space, no air, no water, no nothing.
If they can make supply runs down to earth to get what they need, it works.
That would mean that they need secured parts in the world down below. so there are safe havens probably.
Meaning there's people down there, living in . . big urban monstrosities. Hive Cities, Sprawls, Megaplexes, call them what you want.
And that means there's the same fucked up society there is in most parts of Shadowrun still. Only that going out of the city is like in Judge Dredd.
Or Fallout after leaving the Vault. Maybe a bit Mad Maxx Style too. But with Magics! Imagine The Sox or Bug City or the Shedim Plague, only world wide.

Nope, the mana void is still valid. People can survive on the moon. They even have colonies there in canon SR. Just gotta watch that your population doesnt overwhelm your colonies ability to produce essentials. Plus, If someone can get planetside and stock up on Oxygen, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Etc... without dying, then that person can potentialy make a lot of Nuyen selling it. Maybe even rent a place on board a station or Lunar colony.
And before the question is asked, the answer is "yes mages are pretty much boned up there". Not that I particularly hate on mages. But thats how it works.
Im thinking though, about making a new type of foci based on Power Foci to give something for mages to draw mana from. Havn't work out all the details yet.

The whole campaign is a sort of "in development" kinda thing. We have had to gloss over a few details but everyone is liking it.

Supply runs, Corporate enclaves, you name it. Only now you have a whole bunch of really nasty things right outside your door ready to eat you. Who knows, maybe a few of those nasty things have slipped past the walls, barriers, wards and are hunting inside in secret.

Cool! Not my thing (if I'm going to do Shadowrun, I want magic as a marked setting element -- otherwise I'll do something like Transhuman Space or such) but cool. Sounds like an interesting premise. How advanced is the space travel involved?

Not much. In SR, Space-Travel is more or less what we have today. Only difference are Sub-Orbital PLANES that regularly reach Orbit in their Ballistic flight-path to the target airport. So getting to and fro orbit would be easy peasy, but Space Travel in general between Earth and Mars is still seldom and takes lots of time.

A decent space traveling vehicle cost about as much as a Thunderbird with enviroseal (yea expensive). I also removed the maximum speed once you get outside the atmosphere (yes the scientific minded on this board are probably ready to string me up ). I also kinda fudged a bit on the technological side and made artificial gravity generation possible. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gravity) I used the entry (Gravity generator/gravitomagnetism) as a basis. Most stations with a permanent population use rotation as a means of gravity though.

Those THree have written a Novel that deals with something like that, actually.
In germany, the Title is "Gefallene Engel", i don't know if i can find the english title
Edit: Seems to be FALLEN ANGELS.

I didn't like Harlequin's back for the same reasons as OP. Too railroady, and I have a pet hate for modules with a big, powerful NPC who can save the day if required. And I also hate "fudging" dice. So those two things combined put me off it, and in fact I think my group didn't end up finishing that one. Still it doesn't take too much effort to rejigg it a little. But my point is, not a well designed module for me.

I have to agree, you try to draw down on a 10,000 year old immortal (from either the front or back) and you draw back a stump.
You don't get past the millennium mark by leaving things to chance.

Mega plots didn't bother me if it they are sensible.

Some things are so big that they can't be stopped. You have to pick sides and can try to make a difference in the outcome in your corner of the world.

H2 was a mixed bag (a little long perhaps) but it was also an astral quest. The pay off at the end was good.



But the sacrifice being rendered useless by the Dragon Hurt series... did hurt. If nothing else the Big H should have known what Mr Dark would do. He should have been going after Mr Dark by proxie (and bringing him to the attention of the other Immortals) or at least bringing in reinforcements so that Mr Dark couldn't over whelm them.

A small tie in (no names mentioned) in the final Dragon Heart series would have been nice.

I just didn't encourage my players to stay. They all had too much unfinished business. I did have one player who made the sacrifice but he wanted to start a new character.

I did take the opportunity to jump the campaign forward a year and let the players get a fresh start in a new city.

See, I consider that "dungeons and dragons thinking". It hearkens back to the days of 150 hitpoints and being able to chest-block ballista shots if you were high enough level. It's like you want to make it like level 1 characters can't pwn level 36 characters.

But Shadowrun is more realistic in that anyone can get lucky and take out a consumate warrior. It may not be likely but it is possible. Think about how different the world would be if heroic men and women (eg. cops and soldiers) couldn't be killed by Homeric spear-carriers (eg. 15 year old gangbangers and nihilistic suicide bombers).

If I wanted Celtic women to teabag me with an odd combination of magic powers and 20th century postmodern feminism I'd go hit on aggressive college chicks of Irish descent. If I wanted to play what Shadowrun UNIQUELY offers, a modern gritty morally ambiguous setting where heroes die and luck and error wreaks havoc upon the best laid plans, I sure has heck wouldn't sit through a session of Harlequin's back.

Yeah, sounds like a pretty sucky adventure - the unholy trifecta of super-GMPCs, blatant railroading, and encouraging the GM to cheat. And some sanctimonious moralizing in there, too? Wow.

But I agree on the immortal elves. They should have a high degree of initiation, some unique metamagics, some powerful foci and spirits, yeah. Power-wise, they should be a bit beyond what the PCs are capable of. But they should be long-lived by working from behind the scenes, having sensible security precautions, and knowing when to run away really quickly. They shouldn't be able to no-sell everything tossed at them and laugh at missiles.

You ever read the Thieves' World series? They had a near-immortal badass in their named Tempus, but even he found himself in trouble once - simply from some punk with a slingshot, who didn't give a damn about what a badass he was supposed to be. He talked his way out of that, but still, he was a moment away from having a new hole drilled in his forehead. Badass or not, he was still in a world where a punk could potentially get lucky and take him out. That's the kind of SR I like to play.

So out of curiosity, what happens if the PCs decide to kill Harley when he's unconscious, or when they find him chained up being tortured?

By the logic of the adventure? Doesn't matter, he thought of that or has a plan for that, or you will never do so because he's just that much better than you. It doesn't matter what you do, he will out-think or out-do you. He's pretty much the perfect GMPC -- he can 'slap down' or 'punish' any player.

Silly, but how it's worded.

That sounds like a good way to handle it O.o
I hope you gave that one guy horrible ammounts of Karma in his new character, because he had done something right in a prior life? ^^

There I disagree, vehemently. The essence of Shadowrun is, for me, that everyone can be killed. If an Immortal Elf gets into weapon range of a team of runners, he is just another dude. Powerful, probably, but not immortal anymore. Not leaving things to change means staying the heck away from meeting Shadowrunners, among a few other things.

Big baddies like Immortal Elves and Great Dragons should be practically unkillable, well-nigh unkillable, or even virtually unkillable...but not just plain old matter-of-fact unkillable. And what's more, their unkillability should come from the rules. If they're survivors because they're smart, the GM should play them that way. Don't just hand-wave it away by rolling a handful of dice, lying about the result, and insisting the player "pulls back a stump" or "gets bitched slapped." That's laziness on the GM's part, and -- when it's encouraged by a published adventure -- on the writer's part, as well.

If the players have to role play, cook up plans and contingencies, layer abilities and traps and schemes, and do things within their power -- by being smart -- in order to succeed, the GM (and by extension the NPCs) should be expected to do the same. Anything else is just sloppiness and poor form.


Nope, never heard of 'em. Especially not about any 'Tempus' yahoo or his Stepsons.

*whistles innocently*

The main problem, I and other like-minded folks have is that Immortal does not equal Invincible.
Tough, maybe. Prepared, definitely. Not invincible. Given enough preperation, secrecy, and luck it should be possible, however unikely, to take down most anyone. Its the reprocussions that should stop you in your tracks.
The unwritten metaplot rules say "NO! Bad player. Go sit in the corner and make another character."

Take HB for example, instead of making Harley invincible just have the players fail the Astral Quest. The module even states that the GM decides if death on the quest is permanent or not. If you turned on Harley, you just earned a powerful enemy that knows alot about you and may have really messed things up for the world at large.

It always comes down to the GM I guess.

I believe I let him take his full earned Karma over to the new character for just that reason.


On invincible Immortal Elves, after a few thousand years they must be able to read the rest of us like an open book.

If someone was of the type that he or she couldn't be trusted then they never would have been invited along in the first place. You don't think that the big H wouldn't check with the spirits to see who he should bring along?

Or if they had to be there then the IE would take precautions (I wonder how good at magically assisted hypnosis you would get after a few thousand years).

The IE are the next best things to a Greater Dragon.

Now if the players run in to a greater dragon and they left their brief case nuke at home, then they are not going to realistically be able to kill it. Hurt it yes, but kill it... No. Which would then eventually be very very bad for the PCs, as the GD or IE made an example out of them.

Is the greater dragon or IE totally invincible.... No, not if they have the right tools and an opportunity to use them.

If the players could get a briefcase nuke or a Thor strike and prevent the quicken super extended detect bomb spell from warning the target off, I would give them a chance to blow either one to kingdom come.

Which if they were acting independently, I admit would then eventually be very very bad for the PCs, as the other IEs or GDs would then make an example out of them for the bragging rights if nothing else. "You killed my master... Now justice will be done"

Finally, I just have to agree with FASA that if they stat it, then they will be killed and some things should not be able to be killed out of hand. Who want to hear some munchkin talking about how their Troll Tank cyber zombie killed the big H.

If an IE or a GD goes down then it should be as part of an Epic campaign.

I am so glad I don't play with GMs who get off on GD and IE worship.

(double post)

Who cares? If it was fun for him, the other players, and the GM, why does it matter?

Not if that IE or GD is being run as an idiot. Being an IE or GD isn't an automatic "I win every fight" button. They've got fantastic magical powers and amazing intelligence and foresight -- but they should have to use those in order to be formidable opponents, they shouldn't just walk around being invincible simply by virtue of who they are.

If Harlequin's summoned you for help and is standing there chatting with you, and the super-Wired sammy wants to go for his pistol and try to take a shot...well, why shouldn't he be able to out-fastdraw Harlequin?

I'm not saying he can, please keep in mind and reread that sentence. I'm saying "why shouldn't he?" Stat it up. Think it through. What defenses is Harlequin using, and how, and does he always have them? Stat it up. Play within the rules of the game you've all agreed to play within, and figure out a way to make it work. Take some time as a GM (or as the writer of an adventure) and make things fit and work within the rules of the game.

If it's a Quickened Armor spell linked to trigger from a Quickened Sense Enemies spell, or whatever...fine. Just stat it up (even if their Forces are in the double digits), and play by the same rules everyone else has to. Don't just say "LOLOL you go for your gun and die LOLOLOL." Make it fit. Make it fun for everyone, not just you.

I did just that when I ran the campaign. I took the suggested magical stats of Ghostwalker as a basis.
Harley had some ext. masked quickened spells at Force 24 with 24 hits.

Deflection/Combat Sense/Armor/Pers. Mana Barrier/Pers. Physical Barrier

Some Anchored spells if real trouble happened. Pretty hardcore to take out, but not impossible.
----
Never needed his stats during HB. Harley actually does practically nothing during that campaign. It's the PC's that do the work.
Besides, the PC's that stay behind are absolved of their task by the Powers That Be. It was just a test to see if they had the guts to make the sacrifice.

Yes IE and GD can be killed... the question is how many GM can play an IE or GD with the kind of realistic foresight and planning that one would require in order to role play them properly and still have time to do everything else? There are some great GM's out there that can, but there is a lot more that aren't that interested trying to out think everything their players can do. The latter is who the short cuts are for.

It's far easier to play the uber-NPCs as being infallible if they never appear in front of the runners and therefore never get tested.

No GM can outthink Players. EVER.
Players do dumb stupid suicidal things that no GM would ever expect.
And they get along, mostly by sheer dumb luck.
Player:"Huh? that actually worked?"
GM:"What do you mean?"
Player:"I only wanted to see what would happen, i did not think it would work or anything"
GM:"§$%&!!!!"

There is a major difference between worshiping GD and IE and making sure they get the respect they deserve.

A GM can never fully predict what a group of players will do. That is what makes it fun.

And since it is a total moving target to match the NPC power level to the PC's power level, I'd rather they give me more information on the adventure than a set of stats for the Big H that I'd have to change any way.

I'd classify your idea of what's deserved as worshipping, so I see no difference.

I much rather hear that than to hear about yet another group that got railroaded through the fucking adventure by an untouchable godling.


I do not think these stats mean what you think they mean.

I liked the adventure as background but not sure I or my players would like to run it.

Wow, that would be really hard for the GM to bullshit out of.

GM: "Harley goes down frothing because he got tentacl'd. It looks like he needs emergency medical care!"

Player: "OK, I grab my medkit in my left hand while still holding my Warhawk in my right, run over to him...and put a round in that santimonious asshole's forehead!"

GM: "He, uh, was faking? And, uh, beats your initiative and hits you with a force 40 D manabolt using his eyes?"


Or,

GM: "When you get back it seems like the bad guys are swarming everywhere and Harlequin is unconscious hanging upside down from a torture board and his body is covered with weals and cuts."

Player: "Finally, that goddamn sanctimonioius bastard isn't in the position to hit me with his eyebeams when I try to take him out. I run up to him, put my Predator against his temple, and pull the trigger."

GM: "He, uh, uses his prehensile wang, which is actually the size of a baseball bat, to hit you as you get close for 40 D damage."

ROFL.

- J.