Granted, I've never read any of the books, but is there a specific incident that this refers to? Are dragons simply always double-crossers? Untrustworthy? A bargain you won't be able to keep?

I've never been a big fan of the saying, because it's often seemed to me like making a deal with a dragon is better than pissing a dragon off by not making a deal with them. If you make a deal, you're at least temporarily useful, and will be able to, y'know, leave the room with all your limbs and stuff.

The issues arise from two things; their alien/inhuman nature, and their remarkably high mental attributes. That means they're smart enough to probably double cross you successfully, or they've got so many schemes going that you might never really know what you're doing for them or why, or that they might think of you kind of like a really talented ant that's saving them a little bit of trouble (but why honor an arrangement, really, with an ant?), or maybe making a deal with one of them will get you involved in inter-dragon politics and make you enemies of all the rest of them, or on and on and on. There are a billion ways it can go wrong, is the long and short of it, even compared to your average job for your average Mr. Johnson.

You take your chances, either way. Personally? Like I said, I'd rather say "yes" to a dragon than "no," if for no other reason than to make myself momentarily useful to them and ensure they're not going to bite my face off right that very second.

Yeah... i am on Critias side here.

Say "Yes"... but holy HELL. Take care. If you EVER work for either:

A Dragon,
A Free Spirit (powerful),
An AI,
Or any kind of Immortal (Nosferatu, Immortal Elf etc.):

Don't let your guard down, document EVERYTHING. And don't go to BED (things could happen while you are asleep *g*)

I allways thought "to cut a Deal" means cheating, cutting away a Peace of the Deal for yourself ?
And that it meant to never cheat a Dragon with part of the Deal and to keep up with what you promised ?

JohtaHey
Medicineman

You know those chess players that can play a game or two in advance, rather than just a move or five?

Dragons play entire tournaments in advance. In their heads. Constantly. In their sleep. While dead drunk. While doing complex mathematics that make Stephen Hawking's head hurt.

And they have their own plan, which may, or may not, involve the eradication or slavery of Metahumanity.

And they know far more about what is going on with all the changes in the world than they're talking about, even the small harmless parts.

Dunkie made up for that a bit, and was able to earn enough trust despite the stereotype against Dragons to become President... Unless he cheated the election just enough to win. He's already proven he can jigger digital things without getting caught. But, after the previous election was faked...

Well, convenient that, isn't it? Falsification doesn't necessarily mean it was the people in question that did it.

Hm... well some dictionary says this:

cut a deal
to arrange a deal; to negotiate an agreement.

cut a deal (American)
to make an agreement or an arrangement with someone, especially in business or politics

I think it really just means "make a deal".

The more complete saying should be, “never cut a deal with a Dragon that’s not extremely well thought out and without contingency plans”.

I had a merc character whose ambition was to get a gig as a S-K troubleshooter reporting directly to you know who.

One of our PCs tried to make a deal with Ghostwalker, against everyone else's advice. (Actually, he wanted to rob Ghostwalker, at least they talked him out of that.) The PC is a great face, accustomed to everything going his way, especially negotiations. Unfortunately, he forgot about magic. He left Ghostwalker's lair with no deal and a mental compulsion to report back on everything the PCs did.

That's why you don't (try to) deal with a dragon. A dragon doesn't need to worry about honoring his end of the bargain if he can bully you into doing what he wants.

Yeah, I think it was going to the whole, just don't even try to make contact with them.
You see them in the street, just keep on walking and try not to make eye contact, since what they're peddling is not conducive to your wellbeing.

When you read the descriptions of the published dragons, most of them are realy quite honorable. If they hire you for a job they will pay you. They are less likely to screw you over than many other johnsons.

The problem is they are smart and have wide ranging plans.

If a corp Johnson hires you he probably works for a division and you can do some digging and find out what this is all about. The time scale won’t go back more than 20 years or forward more than 5. you can hope to strategize on his level. Also the enemies will be (meta)human and you can strategize on there level as well.

If your working for a dragon his strategic time frame goes back 5000 years and forward about the same. You might be able to work out a couple of the more obvious elements of the plan, as they affect the short term but there is no way you will understand what is going on. Worse his enemies (and yours for as long as your working for him) are likely thinking at, or close too draconic levels.

Take bradd’s example of dealing with ghost walker. He has a system set up to get an audience, he responds well to polite suggestions. If you actually has something to offer him (and most shadow runners don’t) he would happily deal with you fairly. Ofcause you have no chance of swindling him and you don’t likely have anything he wants so what basis do you have to deal. The response received seems appropriate to wasting a dragons time. The question becomes why dose ghost walker even want updates on the runners activities.

They will also [probably] outlive your character, meaning they can have extremely long-range plans in mind.

The other reason is that it hurts your street-cred, I believe it ups your notoriety by a point. Everyone distrusts dragons, and working for one means you might have been compromised.

It's the your crunchy in milk theory of doing business.

(AKA don't help things higher on the food chain then you.)

In this case, Ghostwalker was actually looking for the PCs. They were traveling with Jane "Frosty" Foster and a powerful 4th World artifact. Ghostwalker had an agent approach and invite them to an audience. Everyone else said HELL NO. They knew the likelihood that Ghostwalker would try to acquire the map and Frosty herself. However, the face was a bit too self-assured and thought he could get away with playing James Bond and waltz into the dragon's den. At least we talked him out of playing Bilbo Baggins.

Luckily, everyone was also smart enough not to trust the face until all of the magic wore off.

Is there another saying that goes somewhat along the lines of "giving the dragon anything he wants"?

This. Except the Dragon has already accounted for your contingency plans and made them either part of his(her?) overall plan or set things in motion to make those contingencies highly highly undesirable.

My read on this whole 'don't deal with a dragon' isn't that the dragon will necessarily strongarm or doublecross you. As mentioned, the dragon has a much longer view than you do. The dragon has a lot more resources to bring to bear if he really wants to than you do. The dragon is physically stronger than you are. The reason the dragon's hiring you is something that almost exclusively benefits the dragon, with you just getting a little cut of the money. They are smarter than you, they know more than you. It is not going to be to your benefit.

You are not on equal footing. And there's one more thing to bear in mind.

The dragon probably has much more powerful enemies, than you do. Right now. Cut a deal and that may change. Dragons deal with other dragons on a regular basis. Even doing a favor for one of them will raise the ire of other dragons, or other beings of dragon-like power, and bring you to their attention. For example: even if Ghostwalker pays you handsomely for your services, he's unlikely to care much about what happens to you next. And Lofwyr probably didn't like what you did.

'Do Not Meddle in the Affairs of Dragons, for You are Crunchy and Taste Good with Ketchup.'

I always thought it was a dumb phrase too. I guess it implies that you should never go looking for dragons, which is good advice, really. But if a dragon decides to introduce himself you should really just say "Sir" a lot and fasten your seatbelt.

That would depend, wouldn't it? If the character in question is indeed as smart as or smarter than the dragon, then I do not see why the dragon's contingencies would necessarily trump the character's.

Presumably, the player never satisfies that condition. Dragons are Batman, juiced on Plot Magic power.

Then what do you do with characters whose mental attributes are comparable to dragons? Do you just screw them over if they try to work on the same level as dragons?

On the other hand, the dragon is only likely to kill you/your team. Cut a deal with the Mob and they could go after you, your family and everyone you've ever met, or whatever the line is.

Sephiroth, yup. Besides, that only means that the dragon was mis-statted.

I can get there with 400 BP, 35 karma, and a successful metaplanar quest.

And it should otherwise be known as a "Series Ending."

Maybe.

Depends on how much you screw over/inconvenience the dragon.

I once had a Lasombra in a Vampire: The Masquerade game who showed just how vindictive someone with a long enough lifespan can be. A human hunter tried to kill him once, and in exchange my character made a point of culling their family line every few generations, snipping here, trimming there, to get them back down to one or two, and then he'd go away for fifty or sixty years and do vampirey stuff. Then he'd come back and kill all of them but one or two -- never quite wiping the man's bloodline off the planet, but always being able to if he'd wanted -- and basically he was just a sadistic cat toying with a mouse, for something like five hundred years.

I imagine a dragon could do the same, if it were properly motivated and didn't have any other pressing business. There's no reason to assume a dragon would be any more forgiving, or any less thorough than the mob, at any rate.

But would a dragon be that petty?

If properly motivated, maybe.

Are you gonna bet your life, and the lives of everyone you've ever loved, on the fact that they won't be?

No, but if I make a deal with a dragon, I'm not gonna be the one breaking it.

I've never been a fan of this saying. Yes, a Dragon is dangerous because he outweighs the Shadowrunners on every level (physically, intellectually, monetarily, and magically) but that's true of any host of groups in Shadowrun. I've never understood what makes a Dragon more dangerous than any high powered corp executive or Mafia Don with a squad of Red Samurai, their own team or initiated mages, and their own think tank. Besides, there's simply too many examples of beings in the fluff who compete with dragons on a near equal level. Damien Knight (to the best of my knowledge) played chess with Dunkie and the Azzies have enough juice to fight the Great Dragons of Amazonia, their Awakened servants, and still cause mischief throughout the entire world. Only two things really differentiate dragons from any other powerful entity in Shadowrun: they combine all that power in one being (which has advantages and disadvantages) and they have an unmatched understanding of ancient history.

Meeting a regular dragon means you've hit the big leagues and by that point you better have a guy who can dish out (and survive) anti-tank fire, an initiated mage, a guy with enough computers, nanoware, and brain surgery that he knows ALL the digits of pi, and Kevin Bacon (who by extension knows everybody). Meeting a Great Dragon should mean you're either in serious trouble or your team owns their own corp.

Corps are dangerous, the Mob is dangerous, mages dangerous, but none of those can shape reality by willpower alone. All the other organization are just gonna send people with technology and/or magic after you. Greater dragons have powers that make everything but very high force great form spirits look like pansies. They have resources outside the scope of the sand box most players stay in. There is negative rep attached for associating with dragons cause the average man know that things is a giant lizard that could eat him for breakfast. People rightly fear such things. If your GM plays the dragon card there not a whole lot you can do but hold on, but dragons showing up can change campaigns to train ride real quickly. (There's nothing wrong with railroading if thats how your group wants to play but it something that shadowrun usually isn't about.)

Thor shots warp reality. Nukes warp reality. Megacorps to a large extent define reality in the 6th World. Hell, the Matrix warps reality and that's really the only weak point dragons have. What exactly can a dragon, or a Great, do that's gonna make something like Deus or MCT look like a pansy?

You shouldn't cut a deal with a dragon, mostly because it often seems like a poor excuse for GMs to behave badly and just turn it into their story, rather than remembering its a shared game.

I suppose that its possible to match a Lesser Dragon's mental shenanigans and even top them once and a while. Such people are however, rare, even among shadowrunners (I'd say various CEOs like Damien Knight may apply) but honestly, the SR4A stats given for dragons baselines Lesser dragons at 8 across the board for their Cha/Int/Log/Wil
and gives Eastern dragons 9/8/10/8. So it's possible, with a few nice qualities, to match or possibly exceed a Lesser's mental abilities but at least at character generation, that's ALL you'll have over them and it'll probably be rather expensive. They still have all the other previously mentioned edges over you and have finally (goody goody!) found a mortal who can match wits with them!

Probably still not a good situation to get into.

This is to say nothing of Greats, who, by SR4A, are given a flat "modifier" to the lesser dragon types of oh, about +5 to all their mental stats. I personally don't know how to get a minimum of 13 to a Mental Attribute, only dice pool bonuses to relevant tests. Anyone else have a way?

I still say that it's generally good advice to not cut deals with dragons. They are holding too many cards, and unless you have sufficient leverage, you're not likely to come out ahead overall. And as noted by some other people, simply associating with dragons may give you a hit to your rep.


The fact that Lesser Dragons have an Ess of 7-12, and Greats have a Ess of 12. And that dragons are given Magic ratings = to their Essence. That's "reality warping" enough for me to be a bit scared. I should very well hope I can't piss a corp enough to get them to thor-shot me in any case. Seems like a terrible waste of a mass-driver.

Edit: And upon a second review I think this should be reiterated. Lofwyr is a Great Dragon. Lofwyr IS Saeder-krupp. Not to mention the various rumors of a Great being on Aztechnology's board and the like.

Crash 3.0?

Plus, it's really easy to delegate your pettiness when you're Lofwyr, so it gets really ridiculous really fast when you talk about Greats. In my games having a corporate security division head honest to god gunning for you in particular would be the sort of thing that would very quickly become the campaign focus. Lofwyr can make that happen with a fraggin' office memo.

That's basically it. Don't think you're up to it, don't go looking for it. But if the dragon comes to you, just hope that his plans for you don't require you to be sacrificed, because if they do, it'll happen in a way you won't have planned for.



I think that besides astronomical mental attributes, dragons have some other advantages;
- lots of time to dream up plans using that intelligence, whereas many runners live from day to day
- lots of knowledge. IQ without knowledge isn't the same as IQ with knowledge.
- vast resources to facilitate planning and contingency research
- prestige; people will scurry to do a dragon's bidding in ways they'd never do for a runner. And when dealing with anti-dragon people, the dragon can just hire a Johnson.
- lots of magic; they didn't sacrifice their Essence to get those mental attributes that high, they just start there
- lots of allies; lots of wizards would do anything for a chance to learn magic from a dragon
- experience; they've done all this before. They've sharpened their wits against vampires, dragons and immortal elves. Corporations tend to be rather predictable compared to that. AIs are the only new kind of player at their level.
- dragons are alien; dragons understand people, but people don't understand dragons. That makes the planning game unfair.

Dragons don't understand people, that's why they are alien. People understand people. That can make the planning game unfair - for the dragons.

And PCs do not need to be and are not normal people or even normal runners. They can also be vampires or AIs.

Dragons do not all start with vast resources. They have to get it first. They are not all experienced, they haven't done this all before, especially since none of this have been here before.

This is one of the best answers I've read so far.

As to the whole thing about magic and dragons and PCs not being cool enough - again, with 400 BP, 35 karma, and a successful metaplanar quest, I'm fairly sure a character I make can rival (and probably control) a dragon, and shortly afterwards I could rival even Greats. The thing that makes them scary is that they don't need the 35 karma and successful quest - they start there.

I remember one story about Lofwyr setting up a group of Shadowrunners that did some minor wrong against him that allowed him to profit in five or six ways, and got all of the Shadowrunners dead but one...

He was assassinated shortly thereafter.

So, yes. They can be petty. They can be vindictive. They can be downright cruel.

Even the nice ones. Dunkie screwed someone over in his will: "For a period of ten days beginning on 14 February 2057, Lars J. Matthews will cease to possess any legal status. He will be stripped of all evidence of legal existence, including SIN, credsticks, DocWagon contract, bank accounts and so on. To the individual or group who ends Lars J. Matthews’ physical existence during those ten days, I leave all of Matthews’ assets and 1 million nuyen for a job well done. If Mr. Matthews survives and can prove his identity, his legal status and all possessions will be restored to him. Haven’t you heard? Never deal with a dragon, Lars." - Dunkelzahn's Will

Of course, I wonder what the hell Lars did to earn this form of wrath...

Never steal dragon's last Mountain Dew...

I see everyone mean mostly GREAT Dragons. Lesser ones aren't SO powerful or smart - but they are still more powerful and smart than any of metahumans. Besides, in most cases, we are nothing but a lower form of life from their point of view. Sometimes just annoying or useful lower form of life. Guys who were able to beat the dragon (I mean Twist) were smart - AND had great support AND very, very much luck.

GDs are the same thing - but for them, other dragons are a kind of lower life form...


It was in first "Threats". S-K hired team of runners who earned Lofwyr's wrath. So:
- all shadowrunners were dead at the end,
- S-K' security tested on them new method of paracritter training,
- runners destroyed R&D lab owned by S-K subsidiary... Which has a very nice insurance bougth just a few days earlier,
- last runner stole data from R&D's computer and sold them to Shiawase. But those data were just an impressive, worthless dead end.

And it was just a one of minor plans made each month by a Golden Wyrm.

In my opinion the answer is simple, and avoiding the "Dragon deals because of plotline and GM's desire to include overgrown snakes that breathe fire in a cyberpunk setting" explanation, and trying instead to find a "fluffy" believable one.

Now to the point:

Shadowrunners are nobodies. Dragons are "über" beasties, long lifespans and the experience that comes with it, genius intelligence an alien -for human ideas- concepts of right/wrong, adequate/inadequate, strange methods and even stranger goals. Their plans will be above your comprehension, even if you have the same mental scores, because you simply lack the information to make correct assessments on tehir long and mid-term goals. If a dragon wants something from you, or out of you or with you, its probable that you'll end up like a simple marionette dancing to the big worm's waltz, even if you'll become rich and powerful, you will loose freedom of choice.

And that is the best case scenario.

Do you want to cut a deal with a Dragon now?
I don't.

This is awesome. I love the idea of someone or something having their own personal famility tree bonsai.

Overall it seems to boil down to "don't deal with powers above what you can deal with" and dragons seems to be so high above what normal runners can handle that they won't be happy with it for long.

actually I could see a dragon being as petty as the vampire but not as stupid I mean when you think about it if he lets those people go, they're going to eventually rebuild themselves in such a way as to be prepared to fight him and rally and kill him. if he just lets them go to rebuild he's basicly giving them an infinite number of chances to do so. Eventually they'll suceed and he'll never even know the vampire is doing it. So I might see a dragon doing something similar but not in such a way that would put him in danger.




.....................Though that is an interesting plot twist if dragons are so awesome and everyhting...might they be a little full of them selves....pathetic humans can't hurt me...I'm waaaaay smarter than they are.... that much arrogance is their achilies heel and sometimes it might make them easy to surprise.

Also you know that saying never cut a deal with a dragon. No, seriously you KNOW that saying everyone does... they're notoriously untrustowrthy and schemey. No one wants to do business with them to the point that I imagine they can only doe so through intermediaries another weakness.

So that's there weakness too arrogant and too schemey for their own good. Yes a dragon is that eric cartman character who always comes in at the end of the episode with a briliant plan coming together but A dragon is also the eric cartman who's more likely to have a plan backfire than he might realize. Remember you can't play a tournament in advance a dragon probably just thinks he can and how ever many enventualities he prepares for it leaves him unprepared for the wild card.

Your runner team should take that into acccount. That might be fun to deal with a dragon.

I've always understood the phrase to mean, "Don't get involved with anything a Dragon does because if you do you will ALWAYS end up in situations WAY WAY WAY over your head and possibly end up dead. Things will snowball out of control and the best you can hope for is to be able to limp away from the affair with your skin not too badly ripped up."




-k

Who first coined the phrase? How soon after Dragons first reappeared did the phrase show up? After Dunk gave his talk explaining what the frack was going on? And is it a common phrase among the various citizens of the world or is it something whispered in the shadows?

I'm pretty sure you're overthinking it.

Dragons have far better opportunities to study metahumanity; a lot of time, a lot of metahumans, and metahumans like to talk about themselves. That's what most of TV and literature is all about.
Dragons on the other hand like to keep a lot of information about themselves a secret. Check out Dragons of the Sixth World; that's more or less what well-informed metahumans know about dragons - it's not really all that much.




I think that was a case of bad game design, trying to turn every weird thing into a player race to sell more books. It also developed waaay after the original saying became popular. I mean really, how many NPC AI and vampire runners would there really be?



It's just as new and surprising to humanity; a newly awakened dragon could adapt to it pretty fast, given how smart they are.

I'd think the saying predates SR dragons, anyway, to the dragons of mythology.

Anyone, for example, who has read The Hobbit knows why you don't try to negotiate with a dragon.

But on the other hand, both in Dot6W and SotF, dragons (indeed even Great Dragons) don't really know as much about humanity as most presume.

So? I mean really does it matter how many NPC AI and vampire runners there are? All it matters is that there can now be PC AI and vampire runners.

Those are fringe cases. General guidelines for shadowrunners aren't invalidated just because the new weird thing is different. For the vast majority of runners, avoiding all entanglement in draconic intrigue is very good advice.

For the vast majority of runners, turning down Herr Brackhaus is not a good career move either.