Damm its beyond hilarious when you claim someone is lying about you using a term, when that someone has a direct quote from you using that exact term in the post your preferring.

And while we're at "points you havent addressed" topic, i dont think you have addressed any of my on topic point(scratch that you just didn't address my answer ), nor any piece of critias original post.

Eh, I say drop it and move on. No amount of arguing is going to change anyone's positions on that topic. So, Fantasy/Cyberpunk?

I thought a good points of inspiration were The Longest Journey and Dreamfall, specifically the latter since it begins merging the two instead of dividing them. Also good games in general for Shadowrun. In any case, people can still be surprised by magic, even in a world where it happens. A great way to keep it from getting lame is to let players assume people are one thing, like think that the well armored fellow is a gun bunny, then find out he's a well armored spirit summoning mage.

Kruger, before you continue to attempt to belittle and harangue me with more accusations of being a liar, just do me a favor and review the text I've bolded. It's okay, I understand that you won't, but I'd like to just lay all this out there for everyone else -- mods included, one might imagine, if this thread continues in the direction it's heading -- so that my point can be made as clearly as possible.

In the above quotes, you'll see that there are two statements there that make any attempt to soften the many other uses of "forever" and "immortality" and "eternal life" and similar, inaccurate in Shadowrun, stuff. These early posts of yours were misleading enough that one Dumpshocker -- not me, mind you -- was confused enough to actually make multiple posts asking for clarification, because they had a different (and correct, in their case) understanding of the issue as it's presented in Shadowrun.

You've obviously got some sort of chip on your shoulder that makes sitting at a keyboard uncomfortable, and causes you to lash out at those who dare to disagree with or correct you, as I did. I'm sorry that you took it so personally you felt the need to immediately stoop to "idiot" and "princess" and an assortment of other cute pet names for me, but I think it says more about you than it does about me, really.

The attitude that you'd shown prior to my edited post in this thread -- and, in fact, the attitude you continue to show since, no matter how "irrelevant" you say I am or how "disinterested" you say you are of me, you keep on talking about me -- is what made me actually edit that post in the first place. It was of similar length and content to this one, before I realized that you weren't worth it. There is no point in talking to you. You will not admit that you were using the incorrect terms, and doing so enough that another poster was confused by your usage of them. You will not admit to then being the instigator, or at the very least the escalator, of every bit of chaos that's been shat all over this thread. You won't admit to reveling in the mayhem that seems to follow you from conversation to conversation here on Dumpshock, or admit to -- even in the slightest -- being exactly the sort of e-bully that gives the whole internet a bad name from time to time.

And, what's more, you won't admit to being the sort of punk who just won't shut up and let someone bow out of a conversation when they're tired of your bullshit.

You were using the wrong terms, and repeatedly, early in this thread (and the bolded text at the start of this post shows that). I corrected those terms for another Dumpshocker's benefit, and then somewhere shortly after that this whole stupid conversation got flung sideways off the rails, and the thread turned into a train wreck. I would very much like to be finished with you, now. I would like it if you'd just plain stop saying my name or referring to me at all. I'm not going to change your mind, and you're remarkably unlikely to change mine. It would be awesome if we could just agree to disagree. Elven aging issues have been cleared up, and as far as I'm concerned there's not much reason for us to talk about each other, or those old posts, any more. I'm sure it won't happen, but I'd like to make the effort.

It would be even more great if folks did something like talk about Shadowrun here.

If Elves living to plot-length lifespans is an issue in the game universe (and it is), how do you fix it? What options does a corporate middle-manager have to get rid of his boss, if that boss isn't going to die of old age until -- using the default "22 years per generation" -- your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, grandson is going to be the one that might get his cushy corner office? If assassination is right out (since, generally speaking, anyone above middle management is going to be tough to assassinate), what other options does an employee have? How do those options fit into a Shadowrun game? Industrial sabotage of an important project Captain Lives-A-Long-Time is in charge of? Espionage against Mr. Johnson's own company, to purposefully leak secrets from the Elf manager's projects to a rival in order to make him look bad? How does a Johnson fund this sort of work, since he pretty obviously won't be able to tap into the megacorporation's usual accounts to pay off Shadowrunners?

Likewise, if you were a member of the Ancients or Laesa, how do you cope with it? Branch out and try to start your own chapter of the gang? Set up syndicate work in a new city, with a batch of similarly power-hungry young Elves at your back? Or something a bit more violent, hoping that top-tier gang leaders and crime bosses are easier assassination targets than corporate managers?

Heh, trying.

As I said before, upwardly-mobile corpers would indeed take various measures to weaken or remove their competitors and 'betters', regardless of how long they'll live. [Super-explicit alert: opinion!] It's certainly true that murder isn't the only (or even best) option; anything that weakens, discredits, or distracts the 'target' is a possibility. These kinds of things are classic shadowrun missions, the perfect place to use deniable pawns in much larger power-games.

Back to the OP, I'm not sure there is a problem of 'Tolkien-esque' content within Shadowrun. The various races are largely mixed, with all the tension and conflict that results. Racial gangs say cyberpunk to me, and any reference to Tolkien-style races are deliberately insulting stereotypes; you don't call an Elf 'dandelion eater' because you think it's literally true. The 'racial nations' may be the closest the setting comes to 'Tolkien', but how do they hurt the 'darker cyberpunk' elements? The Tir Ghosts are cyber, magic, drugs, matrix, and the Cascade Orks fly armored hover-APCs.

Magic in SR certainly isn't related to Tolkien, and SR4 makes it easier than ever (well… maybe excepting Bio-Index) to combine magic and tech in the same person. Can we get further examples or clarification of the problems of fusing fantasy and cyberpunk?

Well, statisticaly, someone who does not age has 100% chance of dying of violent death (wether intentionnal or accident), no matter how long it take.

And to have thought about it before (from my 80yrs living human point of view), if i don't really care about every day life risk as I am, because I know I'll die anyway, if I happened to be immortal, I'd be damn frightened about dying in a stupid car accident.

All that to say, it would make sense for immortal people to try and gain power to reduce the risk of having their life prematurely interrupted.

Then again, ageing might have the opposite effect, after a few thouthand years, you might be bored enough to not care.


Now let's take that back to our SR elf (because immortal elf are not common enough to be considered as a relevant example of SR elf).

If I knew I'd be able to leave a few hundred years, in a world that has been shaped and is still shaped by a lifespan no greater that 80 years, I'd like to be able to make the most of it, because my education implicitely contain the fact I'm not going to leave a hundred year.

A very cute cryatribe you concoted, however I never called you an idiot. I called the application of Tolkeinesque concepts of Elves living effectively forever idiotic. Perhaps you wrote for FASA in 1989. If that's the case, then perhaps you'll just have to live with the criticism of your work. Otherwise, you probably shouldn't continue to make shit up and pass it off as the truth. Mooncrows confusion about the immortality question was his. Especially since I hadn't used the term when he asked. You just simply chose to do it an abrasive manner and then pretend like I wouldn't notice. If you knew that I would see it and make note of it, then why would you do it in the first place unless you were looking to elicit a reaction? I think what pissed you off was it didn't, and thus you escalated it further, later in the thread. You wanted a reaction. You were begging for a reacion. And once you got it, and it was not something you could handle, you cry. That's fine.

I love how your victim mentality lets you believe all this bullshit. You're a fucking riot man. I'm not innocent by any means and never claimed to be. I'm happy to dish right back out what people give. But, like I showed, I didn't just arbitrarily and indiscriminately attack people. I focused on two very specific individuals who baited the exchange. I've owned up to my part. We're waiting for you to own up to yours. And I can only imagine we'll never get it.

Holy shit, do you not pay attention? I admitted to being this guy. You wanted this conversation. I gave it to you. And when you've had the chance to walk away and salvage your dignity or the thread, you've come back.


Still more of the pot calling the kettle black. I was talking about Shadowrun, you started with the personal attacks. Bravo. What about Shadowrun would you like to discuss? Was it buried in there somewhere between your attempts to derail the conversation and this post where you took the one line where I referred to immortality entirely out of context in some desperate attempt to show people you weren't wrong and not acting like a dickhead? While waiting for you to catch up, we had to wait until this post for you to actually get to discussing Shadowrun.

So don't worry, I'll never mention your name again unless you ask me to. It isn't like I'm targeting you, or following you around threads. I remember you now, sure. I know you as a conniving, scheming little whiner who likes to be sarcastic and abrasive and then hides behind a mask of innocence. That's the kind of behavior that gives the Internet a bad name. The difference between you and me is that I'm not cowardly about my attitude.

He pulls in favors from unsavory characters that he can pay off with the usual accounts after he gets the position. He files it as 'consulting work, meals provided' and Luigi's Ristorante gets a five figure sum for fronting the cash to hire the 'runners to axe the guy or the guy's career, plus a favor at a later date.

Heck, force an extraction if you want to get paid twice. It's about the only time I'd have a team do something nice for Aztechnology or Mitsuhama.

On that note, I don't think any of us are looking at the other side of this - What about the humans who already have those positions and need to promote up their replacement as they travel up the chain? Are they going to groom a Keeb to sit in that spot forever?

They might not. Or they might. What would that Elf feel if he kept getting passed over for promotion, locked into a thankless middle-management job that amounted to riding herd over a stack of McDonald's employees for the thousand or so years he can potentially live?



I don't think any Laesa or Ancient will reach the Ork maximum lifespan, let alone their own.

Different lifespans and career planning are going to cause trouble. Certainly. Is that bad for the setting? Certainly not, trouble is what the game is all about.

SR is a society in transition, from the socio-techno-economic structure of a mundane human world, into something else, and pretty much nobody really knows what the next stable society will look like.

The next stable society would probably have Dragons as Citizens, and everyone else labeled as "Snacks".

And shadowrunners would be replaced by rebels lead by the IE ?

I'm wondering, with the level of magic supposedely increasing for the next couple of millennia, how do you think technology is going to evolve ?

Side note : If we could avoid having any more lead flying aroung in this topic, that would be nice, not that I mind talking in the middle of a gunfire, but it's a bit noisy.

Well, with AIs now making the public scene...

AIs, dragons, horrors... the IEs will have to mind their step very much.

It's an interesting lens you view the world through.

Locked for 24 hours to give Kruger, Critias and everyone else who feels this is adressed to him a chance to cool down.