Ok correct me if i'm wrong but the only great dragons we've seen actually die have either done so at the hands of other dragons or offing themselves. Dragons have taken hits from Orbital lasers with no real affect other then scar tissue. Ghostwalker more or less single handedly kicked the Azzies out of Denver. Another single handedly razed Tehran to the ground. Am I the only one who rolls their eyes a little bit that dragons seem to be the only beings in the whole settign who are out of the realm of possiblity for anyone but themselves. Even immortal elves have bit it (although at the hands of Dragons). Does anyone know what possible point this serves other then to pay homage to earth dawn?

Great Dragons being Uber badass sits just fine with me.

BlueMax

I tend to think of the dragons we hear about are a step above and beyond the ones we have stats for. I would not make dragons any more difficult to kill than their stats indicate, including great dragons.

The term "single handedly" is incorrect. Both of them employed a good number of spirits in their attacks. In Ghostwalker's case this is extra potent since he is described as being (probably) the greatest conjurer in the 6th World.

Po-tay-to Po-tot-o as these super powered entities were depicted more or less casualyl waltzing through the considerable magical and military might the azzies had to offer, and if any mega-corp should have had magical punch it should have been the azzies. The ghost walker story was one of the least satisfying bits of that little arc. Hooray another super powered dragon pops up in the world, oh and it turns out he's the greatest conjurer ever dictating terms to nations and corporations alike. Who rather then doing the sensible thing and nuking him allow him to pretty much set up denver as his personal fiefdom with their own forces filling out his assets. Arn't dragons great? THeir so interestign and mysterious what with their ability to casually single handedly take on military powers. It raises the question of why theres corporate powers at all as dragons could esentially be running every signifigant power block on the planet. There's no reason for them to act subtly because nothing can kill them but another dragon.

Criticize through creation.
its 2072-3ish, write up what you would like to see.

Trust me, I left Dumpshock for a few years to resist the urge to complain about Surge.

BlueMax
/that rhymed!

Two thoughts on this - the first is that is part of the mystery of the Great Dragons - why haven't they just taken over everything? What are they playing at, hoarding all of that massive power and doing (apparently) not much with it?

Secondly - well, you've answered your own question. They act subtly to avoid stepping on each others' toes in obvious ways and instigating a conflict in which they actually stand a chance of being damaged or destroyed.

O.K., so I lied - third thought on the issue - they act subtly and play games like they do essentially because they're all but unkillable immortal beings. If they just stepped in and used brute force to resolve anything, there wouldn't be any sport in life and it would probably get boring right quick.

All of that said, I'm fine with the Great Dragons being as powerful as they're portrayed. They're the godheads of the setting and, as such, are extremely powerful, unpredictable, sometimes capricious, and inscrutable. Despite all of this, they still interact with mortals in a way that we can (basically) understand, and their games affect nations (and extra-national corporate entities) in ways that have repercussions that affect everyone in the Sixth World. They make for great rocks to start the ripples in the pond, so to speak, and are, indeed, pretty mysterious.

The other question that needs asking about the Denver incident is just how much force did Aztlan have there? I've always been under the impression that the various Denver forces were about equivalent to the West Berlin brigades that the NATO powers had in that city, in which case it's not unreasonable that a single Great Dragon could win.

Don't even start on SURGE. I never purchased or read those books beyond the first, never will, and will pretend that the section on it in Runner's Companion is, actually, just a few blank pages.

Exactly. While Ghostwalker kicking Aztlan out of Denver is impressive, Denver isn't even part of Aztlan proper. They were restricted in what assets they could keep there by the Treaty of Denver, so it's hardly like Ghostwalker waltzed into Azzie central and booted them out.

I don't much like the whole Ghostwalker-takes-Denver storyline, but it's not the all-powerful accomplishment the original poster makes it out to be. And part of it was surprise; if Aztlan had expected a great dragon and a small army of spirits to cruise into Denver gunning for them, they could have been prepared to deal with it. But that's not the sort of engagement Aztlan's assets in Denver were prepared to face.

And Aztlan hasn't exactly taken the insult lying down. It was a pretty clear signal to Ghostwalker when Aztlan not only sacrificed Dzitbalchen, but also had another dragon (Pobre) turn Dzitbalchen in for them. Dragonkind isn't entirely safe from Aztechnology.

I think there are two main issues here.

Meta game
Something needs to tie the game into the fiction, at a level beyond the local structure. Most of us have read the books, and many of us have played Earthdawn. Dragons tie the current timeline into and with the books, and Earthdawn. Perhaps we will see the great horrors coming and battling the dragons in the future.



Deus Ex
In the metagame, Dragons are part of the overall mystery. Players need to have something mysterious, or the campaign is basically pointless. GMs need something that they can point to that is tougher than any player however twinked and broken. If a GM needs something to happen, " A dragon did it" or "It was all Lofwyr". If a player is capable of defeating the Deus Ex, why are they still playing? Time to retire and start from 400 BP characters.

This is an imaginary connection, as far as game rules goes. Any game system that requires the familiarity of another system is by design a poor game, and if Shadowrun ever comes to that, I (and many other people, I suspect) will walk away from it like a bad date.


Maybe you haven't heard the news, but a while back it was discovered that starting 400 BP "twinked, broken" characters can kill multiple Great Dragons out of the box (so long as said dragons play pretty and line up for the character - simply for the realm of possibility. Said character can still take 1 v 1 though).

In fact, multiple characters have been "twinked" and "broken" so that not even Great Dragons can get past without GM "handwaivum." (I like that word-phrase)

And a paraplegic ork with a rusty knife could kill multiple characters if they were to "play pretty and line up". What does that prove?

Maybe you missed the point. The character simply can kill a great dragon. If multiple greats were within a full-auto burst, he could kill more than one. Allowing them to not line up means he just has to murder them one at a time. That doesn't stop the character from being able to kill them, it just slows him down.

Dragon's haven't taken over the world yet because of a couple things:
1. There isn't enough of them to take over the world. They can control their little fiefdoms here and there but it appears that even a Great Dragon's domain is no larger then a single country at best.
2. They are not all on the same page. Any time you have a force that is concerned with both inward and outward threats, you have an advantage as a single faction (in this case one Dragon) would need to kill off all the other Dragons first before taking over the world (not an easy task as even the strongest dragons (GW and LF) are fairly evenly matched).
3. Dragon numbers are critically low (as stated in Dragon's of the Sixth World) and no dragon is interested in furthering their control until they know they have kin to inherit it first. This makes Dragon eggs critical as your literally holding the future of all dracokind in your hands.
4. Super nations (like Azland) have fought against and are currently fighting against dragons and are winning. It isn't an easy fight but there are nations out there that have the might, the magic, and the technology to take down a dragon (if not a great dragon).

IMHO dragons will not be able to conquer the world until they institute a "Rule of Two" type rule that eliminates infighting between dragons and focuses all of the dragons' assets to one unified goal.

TNSTAAFF?

There is no such thing as a fair fight.

First lesson my father taught me.
"Go ahead , take a swing I'll be gentle."

Dragons are deep planners, so deep, GM handwavium simulates depth because none of us have Logic 15.

BAMMM

BlueMax
/Still Recovering

Poor justification for poor planning.

I will echo others here and say that I am interested in Shadowrun, not Earthdawn and do not want to see SR chained to Earthdawn's dead body. Furthermore the horrors returning in canon shouldn't be for thousands of years so no I don't see that as a very viable storyline within the context of the Shadowrun story. However I hear there is this game called Eclipse Phase and one by the same company called Cthulu Tech if you want to try that flavor of game.




There are many many things in the setting that work perfectly fine a Dues Ex if one is absolutely required but those mechanics are best if used sparingly, or not at all. It is very poor story telling to tell someone "Your plans didn't work because this guy can beat you utilaterally, and further more if you broken a roleplaying game down to a simple combat simulator and your only challenges offered are the next beasty to kill, well there are better simulators for that as well i think.

For me at least RPG's are about the story to be told. While mysteries are good, Dragons in Shadowrun are about as Mysterious as a forest fire. They may do things you don't understand but your only interaction boils down to avoid or get killed by them. That's interaction undermines the role playing game portion of things.

Is this comment an insult to me for not being as smart as a Logic 15 Dragon? Who made the poor planning? The 400 Point characters, the Dragon, me?
So confused, likely due to poor planning, that I don't know how to react.

The game escapes reality and by that alone parts of it can surpass our comprehension.

Are you an I.E. laughing at us?

BlueMax

The German army shot down a great dragon directly after it awakened, somewhere around 2012 i think.
This actually should happen more often if dragons behave as retarded as Ghostwalker.
We had a thread here a while back where methods to kill great dragons where discussed and it offered some workable methods.
The premise was to find suitable tactics in case a nation or corp had to fend off another scaly Mary Sue running amok.

From the bare stats alone, it's quite easy.
One or two well-placed shots with an Itzcoatl gauss rifle could be enough.

The crucial points are :
-staying out of their reach (not that hard with a gauss rifle or indirectly fired missiles)
-finding them in spite of magical concealment (difficult, but managable- they're glowing like christmas trees on the astral, so just take some astral spotters, let them look at the wyrm and triangulate it's position)
-get past defensive spells such as Armor, Combat Sense and Deflection (this would be the most difficult part, even if you hit them with the most kickass Mana Static you can come up with)



No, i'm completely with your there.

Like the cycle of magic, it rises again!

As someone's sig says: Shadowrun is not DnD. When it comes to Great Dragons, your team does not collect your dragonlances, does not jump into your Thunderbirds, and do not go knocking scales out of the sky. It's out of genre people!

Great Dragons are a source of plot in Shadowrun and have been all the way from 1e and on. They exist to set up, interfere with, or be the center of a plot and that's it. They set up new background material. They freshen up a stale piece of the setting. They give us mysterious mysteries to play with. And sometimes, they run for President (and I would have voted too, had I been around!).

Some Great Ideas for Great Dragons:

1. Fulfill Wilhelmina Graff-Beloit's dying wish and kick Lofwyr out of Saeder-Krupp. Huzzah! You've now got what could very possibly be a two year long campaign.
2. Your Johnson sets you up with a job to steal some old tech called "records" out of a collector's house - the catch being that they're all by some deader named Elvis.
3. In Hawaii, you're hired to steal two artifacts from the local people - the Eye and Teeth of Storms. Doing a little fact checking will net you stories about a fearsome Shark God... (Oh wait. That's another one of mine. *steals it back*)
4. Go hunting for some Shasta Deer. No seriously!
5. Got the urge for some ancient history? Draco Foundation versus the Atlanteans. You got your Tomb Raider in my Stargate!
6. Just why the hell did the Azzies sacrifice that dragon? Many minds (including the scaly kind) wonder.
7. Is there really a Great Dragon Mama hiding in the depths of Africa? Let's find out!
8. Ghostwalker was hiding his physical body somewhere in the mountains between DeeCee and Denver. Betcha there's all sorts of goodies hanging out there...
9. For that matter, where the heck was he this whole time? And is he connected to the appearance of the Shedim?
10. Whatever happened to that bunch of crazies that worshipped Dunkelzahn? Actual religion or crazy cult?
11. Dunkelzahn's ghost called - he wants his toenail clippings back.

There. Now instead of arguing about who killed who (hee!) you can go back to what really makes Shadowrun fun - yelling at me for coming up with these stupid ideas!

I'll check my copy of Running Wild but i think the dragon the Germans shot at is alive and well and only mildly scarred by the experience. I think it was the one hit by the orbital lance

Uh, IIRC, wasn't that one stunned by the orbital cannon and then pk'd by Lofwyr? He was attached to Shockwaves.

I could totally be wrong on this one and I'd love for a full translation of Shockwave one of these days.

That could be the case, i'll may do up a chart, but my point still stands no dragon has died by means other then a dragons actions.

you're making that assumption because no one knows who offed the Big D.

Ahem . . I think there is a slight miscommunication at work here.
Fire Wing got shot down, into the SOX pretty much immediately.
But she actually lived through that and mutated into a toxic twisted dragon.
Then when she resurfaced, the whole area got firebombed by napalm like vietnam.
It's unclear wether or not she managed to live through that again, but unlikely.

The OTHER Dragon was Alamais, who got hit by Orbital Laser Cannons . . AND LIVED TO TELL!
Both actually got some scars though. Other Dragons are nowhere near as unkillable as the great ones.
Tessien got killed by Hässlich/Ugly, whom then got shot down by a Metahuman Samurai using a Minigun.
Of course, this was only in the Novels Secrets of Power Trilogy . .

Actually no we know exactly what offed the Big D. I'd tell you but i'd hate to spoil it for you if you don't know as it's not widely known in universe. So it doesn't come up on things like Jackpoint.


I'll give you the brief version under spoiler if you care to look.

OK, everybody who did not allready know that raise hands now please, i am curious . .

I didn't. I mean, I don't.

Because every time somebody brings that book up I get this ringing in my ears, and hear "LALALALA" drowning out massive lameness.

Ditto.

Really? I thought that particular point was pretty cool, the novels themselves were kinda....wierd. Ryan Mercury made for a very poor James Bond stand in, but other then that it wasn't too bad.

I will hate him forever as now we have drakes.

When are we going to see another Dragon snuff it, you ask?

Simple; When the overall story/metaplot requires it. Not a nano before.

And even then, I chalk it up to a "horror-movie-cliffhanger" ending (where they leave enough doubt to power a sequel).

It also gave us Nadja Davier's lucious brown nipples. Mmm. But beyond that, I'm agreeing so hard with LALALALALA.

Do a search, read all about the other hundred times this has come back, and work yourself into a frenzy. "How to kill a dragon?" to "Why don't dragons die?" is an ongoing thread and no one every changes anyone's mind about it.

Are the plot devices, or monster manual entries with really high numbers? That's a question that can only be answered at each individual game table. It's pretty obvious by now which way the writers lean, though, isn't it?

once upon a time in dee yen dee, There was a group of mighty adventurers. They were led by an elf named Brandt, who weilded the legendary sword Stormbringer which he acquired by prying it from the cold dead hands of the demi-god Elric of Melnibone.n His right hand man was a monster of a man named Stohn possessed the blade Mournblade and the Wand of Orcus, both of which were acquired in the same way. By the time the two retired they had gained possesion of every artifact in the Deities and demi-gods tome worth killing for.

I feel better knowing that there are things my players can't kill and if you stat it, they will kill it.

I like my runners to know that at anytime some mysterious enemy could crush them like eggshells. It keeps them humble and paranoid, two traits that are essential to survival in a world where they are little fish in a fraggin big pond...

howerver, that is just my take on things...

Great Dragons, like Immortal Elves, are Mary Sue GMPCs that the authors inserted to make the setting interesting and to ego-trip through it willy-nilly. Which is fine, as long as they're willing to retire them after a decent interval. Otherwise they become annoying as all heck and start to wreck our suspension of disbelief.

I love when people use that. Absolutely cracks me up each time. "They're Mary Sues! They're there to ruin our fun!"

The only reason they're there is for plot. PLOT. That's it. They're not there to screw with you. GMs are the people to blame for that. They are a tool, much like cyberware, magic, bug spirits, UGE / SURGE, AIs...heck, pretty much everything ever written for the world of Shadowrun. Use them or don't use them, fine, but they aren't there to specifically screw with your game.

They add to the setting. They're mysterious power players in the field of magic, much like megacorps and Damien Knight are power players in the field of money and business and UCAS and Brackhaven are power players in the field of government. Can you shoot Damien Knight? Sure. Good luck pulling it off though.

People have this weird obsession with things they can't "touch". You can touch them, destroy them, anything you want to, in your game. Hoi.

Also: Suspension of belief? In a game where magic elves can shoot you in the face for money in the United Canadian American States with a implanted cyber-gun? Hello?

my thoughts zakalakaly..

Your feelings are valid although not ones I share. There are other things in the setting for them to fear other then the dragons. Even that is seperate from the issue that dragons arn't being taken down by runners, which is not a requirement for my query. It's that their not being taken down by ANYONE other then other dragons, that certainly does bother me considering this is supposed to be a game of MAGIC and Technology.

just because there aren't any big news items about dragons being killed by people, doesn't mean dragons aren't being killed by people. certainly, of the great dragons we know of, they haven't been killed by people. and probably there aren't any great dragons known to be killed by people. but to suppose that just because we haven't heard about it, it hasn't happened? that seems a bit silly.

i mean, i can't recall offhand reading in any of the rulebooks about shadowrunners doing any number of things. to suppose that because there's no explicit mentions of shadowruns to, say, take over a missile silo, doesn't mean that the event could not have ever happened; it just means we haven't heard about it.

in all probability, people kill regular dragons every now and then. but it's not like every shadowrun rulebook or novel needs to include a dragon killcounter, to keep track of how long it's been since the last death of a dragon. even if there is specific mention made of a given dragon being killed, because of the nature of the discussions we, the customers, are privy too... if it doesn't have a rather significant impact on shadowrunners, it probably doesn't get brought up.

I fall into the camp who likes the Great Dragons in the SR universe. From the GM perspective, even the thought of a Great Dragon being involved in a plot just terrifies my players (and their characters). I really like the mystery they bring as well as the potential for some epic adventures.

That being said, there's always room for improvement. IMO, there needs to be real change among the great dragons. After all, life happens to everyone, and I think Shadowrun has failed in really showing that with the Great Dragons. I would love to see offspring from the Great Dragons. I would love to see them trying to bring their kind back from the brink of extinction. In future products (perhaps a ways down the line), I would love to see the offspring of the Great Dragons coming into their own, and finding their own roles in the world. Perhaps this could bring conflict as well with the other Great Dragons over terroritory, and the creation of their own lairs. Perhaps their agendas might conflict with their parents'. And yes, I would love to see one or more the older Great Dragons actually die. Maybe from old age, maybe from poisoning. Or maybe long standing tension between two dragons comes to a point where they have to resolve it the old fashioned way: a battle to the death. I can so see that eventually happening between Ghostwalker and Lofwyr. Reading Shadows of North America and Dragons of the Sixth World, there is certainly a history and a tension between those two Great Dragons. I would love to see the developers actually build on that tension in future products to the point where they either kill off Ghostwalker or Lofwyr. I know Lofwyr killed off a relatively unknown great dragon in the past (Nachtmeister), but that was mostly "off stage." I would love to see a product that displays the tension between the two, and escalate it until it reached the big fight. I honestly think something like that is overdue.

This might be applicable if Dragons were only constrained to the field of magic, but no the richest most powerful business magnate in the world is....a dragon. For the record big L wouldn't be the one I want offed. Additionally dragons regularly dabble in the area of military, politics, corporate finance etc. They regularly singly go toe to toe with military assets of various grades and wind handily.

My annoyance is not that the PC's can't touch them, it is in fact that no one in the setting can touch them. Based on prior setting evident Damien Knight who by my understanding controls more military assets then any other single person in the setting could not commit the military resources necissary to bring down Perianwyr a Great dragon who's major accomplishment is owning a night club and being a former assasin.

I've always viewed the great dragons as being something like the Antediluvians from V:tm, they do what they do because it is what they do and they are old and experienced enough to only need really fear eachother.

I figure they have a positive ability "Plot Device," and always having a big fish to make the players keep in the shadows is necessary to keep the game "Shadowrun" and "OMG BLOW **** UP IN BROAD DAYLIGHT... run"

Put it this way for those people who would like to see a Great Dragon bite it at the hands of metahuman/s: Even if a character in an official story does manage to do so, chances are another writer will retcon the story or somehow write in that the GD survived, that his "death" was all part of a grand master plan. And even if the death is permanent, no escape, no reprieve, dead as dead can be, the people who see the GDs as a plot tool/deus ex/whatever you choose to call it will point to the people who done the deed and label them GMPCs or attribute their success to the "plot". It doesn't matter whether GDs can be outsmarted and killed, to them, GDs can only be killed because the GM/writer said so, not because a group of players matched their characters against the GD and came out on top. Even when it is canon, and the GD dies to "mere" PCs, there are people who will stick their heads in the sand and go "LALALA".


When enough shit is blown up, even broad daylight is shrouded in shadows, hence you do get shadow-run.

It's all here.

ShadowRun is somwhere between Deader Than Disco and Maybe Back Later (as, IIRC, Big D was assassinated once before, only it failed, but everyone thought he was dead).

One of the biggest reasons not to off a great dragon is the fact that doing so leaves a power vacuum. We could off Big D because we had a dragon we could "replace" him with (Ghostwalker) who was technically already canon. If you off another dragon, you have to find another dragon to promote into the ranks of "great" (which has only happened once in all of canon, as far as I am aware) or make another dragon "turn up" like GW (which many people already go LALALA at due to the Dragonheart Saga AND YotC).

You want to off a major player great dragon? Find a way to replace him without resorting to a trope.

Or you can not replace him. Let the power vacuum resolve without a replacement, however messy it may be.

You don't seem to ujnderstand what he is saying. Find a way to replace him without a trope, not just with another Great. Anything else would either make another being unbearably powerful because of the sheer amount of stuff and territory given over to another entity, making them Jesus, putting that entity in a position to Dominate the 6th world even beyond Lofwyr. There has to be something there because it's all very carefully teetering on a tight rope and without it someone conquers the world.

And I am saying don't replace him. Let the power vacuum left behind resolve without a replacement.

Great Dragon/Megacorp/IE conquers the world with the vast amount of additional resources snapped up.

End.

It could happen. Or it could also happen that the power vacuum simply resolves with each power snapping up as much as it could and coming back to an equilibrium similar to the one before the GD was killed.

And on and on.