The stuff with Fastjack, at least, seems to be gradual. It didn't hit all at once. He seems to be slipping now and then, and noticing it. It seems to be advancing. Almost like corruption of a drive or somthing that's growing.

We also seem to have evidence that someone is 'Tagging' some stuff around Jack and taunting him. Now.. if it's himself or someone else, that's up for grabs.

One thing that is standing out to me though... Is that other Jackpointers seem to notice it.. and they're not too alarmed. Jack is mentioned to have been "under the weather' or "not feeling like himself" or the like and the little slips don't really alarm them.

Now.. that could be that they're "In character" so it hasn't really pinged on their radar yet.

OR

They could see it and sort of know what's up. The latest fiction even has Jack saying something to the tune of "When I'm myself" and noone even blinked, as if they knew of his condition and at least accepted that Jack being Jack when he could be is better than no Jack at all... or that they're not worried about what ever is happening to Jack being a threat to them.

So that has me wondering. The rest of Jackpoint either, are oblivious to what we've noticed. Which, seems a bit out of character for them. Or they know, and are either chalking it up to age. (Unlikely. Bull for example is an Orc, with their accelerated aging curve and he's not having the same problems)) Or they know what it is and are just not talkin' about it.

Things like this exchange in particular make me think JackPoint knows quite well that FastJack isn't reliable anymore, but for whatever reason (maybe just because they lack any hard information on what exactly is wrong with him) they're keeping mum about it.

After all, there's not much point in talking about the problem if 1) they have no solid leads or 2) FastJack might be compromised and they can't risk "him" knowing what they've figured out.

~Umi

Another possibility is that some of the other JackPointers HAVE confronted FastJack on if he's doing alright, but "off-screen" (y'know, via their versions of PMs), and he just them to not worry about him, hence why guys like Bull, Slamm-O!, or Netcat aren't bringing it up.

Also, not so sure in comparison to Bull, considering that the way he'e been portrayed, I pictured him as a 60-year old man that's still got a bit of life and vitality to him. Hell, in the Season 4 Missions, dude's still got enough energy to go to a Mercurial concert in Underground 93. So I'm under the impression that Bull's got a little bit more life and energy then dear-old 'Jack.

The thing is, if Jack is compromised to that extent.... Someone would have taken him out. Jack's good... IN HIS DOMAIN. In the skin he's not a girl scout or anything, but you telling me Kane or Clockwork or Pistons or someone wouldn't wack him if all the sudden ALLL Their information, deeds, contact info and stuff was up for grabs?

I mean... half of me wants to go "Jack's the "old man' of the group. A Father figure to some or even grandfather figure. Still, we're talking shadowrunners. And while there is alot of loyalty built up for Jack. if you were a shadowrunner (( and some of them are not nice fluffy people.)) Would you risk him turning all that info over if someone else was 'at the wheel' or something?

Maybe it is just time to lose another beloved NPC.

I hope not. I like Fastjack. I mean I get it, if noone ever dies the game loses some fang. Still...... Kill Clockwork... or Pistons or.... even SlammO!. Leave Fastjack (( and Netcat and DevGrrl)) alive.

I will say that having this (( What ever 'this' is)) Happen to A 'beloved' NPC, does make it more pointed. If it was a jerk we didn't like we wouldn't much care.

'Jack is kinda already the "narrator" of SR4...but it would kinda suck to lose him in SR5.

Hell, Captain Chaos had his run from SR1-SR3. Can't 'Jack be graced with a run as long as his?

Of course, if this is 'Jack's time to go, that does the beg the question...who's going to take place for SR5?

(actually, that is an interesting query: To all of you, if 'Jack does go, who do you want to take up his role when SR5 rolls around? My vote goes to Bull. Outside of FastJack, probably one of the most experienced Runners on JackPoint. Makes sense.)

If Jack Goes, I want it to be amazing, saving the world sort of exit. "He hacked the _____ and held the line while the world trembled, and only the efforts of one lone shadowrunner saved us from _____" Sorta deal.

Let him go out a hero. Not fade away.


As for the replacement, alot of the recent stuff seems to have Bull as the Defacto Second.

I'd be cool with Bull taking over.

I'm just wondering if dev/grrl is going to take over JackPoint.




-k

Bull was born in '32, so he's only 42 in 2074. Bull should be pretty old in ork years, but he's in a weird loophole that exists in Shadowrun, but never got much attention. In a couple of the early novels and sourcebooks it was mentioned that some of the Goblinized orks didn't have the hyper-aging problem, that they actually lived a normal "human" lifespan. Kham's grandfather Harry, one of the early Mayors of the Ork Underground, was one of these. We have an in-game explanation for it, though I don't know when it'll actually see print. Homo sapiens robustus clarkus, a rare variation of the ork metagene that effects about 1% of goblinized orks, granting them a normal human lifespan rather than the abbreviated ork one.

Bull

Get it right Bull... it wasnt in ANY sourcebooks. None that anyone could cite me over on the SR4 forums.

It was only in *one*... repeat that *one* novel. Remember I asked for any and all references on the main boards... and that was the only canon reference anyone could find. It was one of those half remembered things everyone 'assumed' when some fiction author wrote some stuff in one of the old pulp novels and people latched onto it.


And like I've pointed out... for a 1% problem... I seem to see it come up almost all the time. Every damn orc I see is the exception it seems. No bladerunner... the light which burns twice as bright burns half as long.

And just as much as everyone grasps on Kham's grandfather... completely ignored is Cam's mother senile at age 30. From the same source.


Personally on my list of least favorites... is Slamm-O (he just rubs me as a glorified script kiddie), Netcat (pollyannish child), and Bull (because I'm sick to death of orcs who don't die of old age or put the money up for leonization or the like). I'm older school and would prefer a return to the more free-form posters of questionable provenance that was done in SR1-3... the current group is far to organized to be believable in setting... it lacks the grit of the older materials where posters would regularly come and go... it's more like a frat party. Think about this for a moment... since sr4 started... how many of the jackpointers have bought the farm? In a highly lethal occupation like they are...

Just how often is "every time I've seen it come up," Falconer? I mean, honestly, how often does old age really matter in your game, and how many characters are we talking about, here? Because I can tell you I've taken life expectancy and breeding rates into mind, personally, with some stuff I've written. But the way you've been snapping at people about this lately, you make it sound like there's just armies of geriatric orks shuffling around, ruining your good time.

...yea, no.

While I wasn't around for SR1-3, but in terms of story, having too many damn characters is far too much. If there's too many posters (who from what I understand, some would make a grand total of one post in one sourcebook, and never be heard from again), then it's hard to keep track of whose who, and I kinda like being able to know the personalities of the posters, which at the very least gives me a better understanding of where they're coming from on their opinions on the various topics presented.

If we just have a bunch of one-off posters that never appear again, then why should I give a damn about what they say? It's more confusing to me then anything.

So I like the fact that with the JackPointers, it's a more focused group who are all easier to follow and to understand why they say the thing the say. As for why there doesn't appear to be a high mortality for these guys, wasn't the whole thing about the JackPointers being legendary runners, and that they've all had a huge amount of experience in the biz, and all of them got Invites to the site by FastJack himself? I would think that since they're legendary runners, they would know how to stay ahead of the curve. So it makes sense that they aren't dropping like flies.

(and just so you know, I also highly dislike the set up of Shadowland vs JackPoint in real life. I hate having to sift through super -public forums (or, god forbid, Youtube commenters) of their being so many different posters, and would rather have a smaller group of posters. At least with a smaller group, who have distinct writing styles of their own, I'd at least have a good idea on how they'd respond to topics. no hodge podge, please)

Critias:
It's mostly because of how the powergamers flock to orcs... because they can ignore the age problem with just a bit of fluff, which is only in a single pulp novel way back in the day. If one single sentence out of the novel is so critical... then why not the next one where he goes into how quickly his mother aged...

With the current setting the meta-racism practically never raises it's head. And the 'accelerated decrepitude' problems get handwaved away... so there's no good reason left for them to be as cheap as they are in terms of BP. So I get tired of seeing power gamed orc sheets show up when I try and run things... Just do to my situation when i do tend to run it's short haul... and for some reason people like trying to bring out their 'questionable' concepts for it on me.

I feel very sorry for the missions GM's that Bull has to help organize who have to take any legal comers at the conventions. I don't envy them their jobs.

If you remember on SR4... when I was eyeballing starting a long haul game starting in the 2050's and running up to the 70's with some downtime between things. Asked on the forums for any advice from anyone who tried to do anything similar. People got all hung up because I was going to make a new 5BP quality... that if the orc wanted a normal human lifespan because he was born human and goblinized as a teenager he could... effectively they could pull a 'Bull' with a cheap positive quality. Instead the thread derailed... and the more vocal posters couldn't get past that to actually address the bigger topic.

I don't think Bull did this with his character...as it dates back to far prior editions of the game. And I have zero issues with Bull as a person/poster/admin. I think he's one of the better ones I've dealt with over the years. I even like his backstory as he did a good job playing the character... up to the point they brought him out of retirement.



tasti:
Shadowland reflects the type of thing in the day. People forget... HTML and the web was only in its infancy in the mid-90's. Computer boards prior to this took the form of BBS's... either using a phone line and dialing into a modem bank... or telnet'ing into some of the internet ones. In either case it was a serial stream coming into a terminal interface. The other main communications medium were newsgroups.

For most of this web forum stuff... newsgroups are still superior to these web boards. Especially nice was the ability to download all the messages.. sort into threads and read.... write up replies offline and then burst them all up at once during limited connection times. Web forums have to be online to use.

So to me, your complaint I take mostly as that of someone who's projecting current web forums with much smaller communities of posters.

As for the other... I strongly disagree... I find the 'stable' of writer 'pet favorites' actually forces me to lose my suspension of disbelief. Instead of seeing professionals in a very dangerous occupation... I see a bunch of frat boys who are primarily all talk.

I got news... even special operations take casualties. Best of the best, doesn't help when lady luck gets new favorites. So I find the lack of turnoever problematic... not so much among the types like Fianchetto... or the big money guys commenting on corp finance... but among the guys who actually do dangerous stuff. So this doesn't make me see them as professionals... it makes me see most of them as nothing more than posers.

Similarly lost... in a lot of that... is a lot of the shadowtalk is supposed to be of questionable provenance and may even be misinformation. This was always the official position of the games developers back then.. you had the core material which was relevent and then you had the shadowtalk... now though... you get extended exchanges of pages of nothing but jackpointers posting.

As a note, when/if this ever goes into the books... It'll be a quality. I have it down as a 10 Point positive quality that can only be taken at Character Creation in my notes. Expensive, but that's mainly so that you don't have every ork player taking it for drek and giggles. It's either an investment made early, planning for very long term gaming, or it's a point sink for something that's purely an RP tool (aka, wanting to play a 40 year old ork runner for whatever reason).

It's that, or we reveal that Bull's an Immortal Ork who's been around for thousands of years. Which would shed new light on his rivalry with Harlequin.

Do the latter it will make people scream and tear their hair out.

I have no idea where you're getting the "frat boys are all talk" line of thinking (except in regards to dudes like Slamm-O!) because I certainly don't see such a thing.

And, well, apparently Lady Luck favors these guys enough that they have it made! And again: since going by the fluff already presented, FastJack apparently trusts all of the JackPointers that he brought onto HIS site, and I would assume trusts them enough to not sell each other out (well, except for Clockwork...for obvious reasons). If he trusts them, and their established rep, survived a good amount of runs (in a biz where the chances of dying on your first run is pretty darn high) I would THINK that any outsider who looks at their posts have every reason to trust their word on things. And not to say that that these guys are fluffy bunnies, considering Riser is portrayed as being a cold-as-ice guy who takes more wetwork runs then any of the others are comfortable in taking.

Also, I have no idea why you think there isn't questionable or misleading information, because in the SR4 shadowtalk, contradicting information is brought up ALL the time. There is never a single topic that all of the JackPointers have unanimously agreed as being 100% fact. They've bickered more than once on a particular person or event and debated what did/didn't happen, and usually never coming to an agreement. It's still there, so no idea why you're acting like it's not there.

And why, on earth, would you want characters to die frequently?

If characters keep dying left and right (unless if there's a major metaplot event going on), then why should we care about them if they keep dying? If we don't spend enough time with them to be invested and care about the characters, why would you even care about what they do and what they say in the Shadowtalk, when you know that more likely than not, they'll be dead and you won't ever hear from them again?

Take Star Wars: New Hope for example; if we start off with Luke, Han, Obi Wan, C3PO and R2D2 leaving Tatooine...and we end the movie with all of the previous characters dead just because they got killed when they were running around the Death Star, because of, y'know, the dangers of charging into a military base alone without the proper gear and manpower is suicide. And we end up with a bunch of schmoes that get introduced halfway through who we've haven't been following before until now.

So overall: regular killing off of characters is bad storytelling. You gotta have a core stable of characters, who can survive thick and through, and who we WANT to care about, and who live long enough for us to care about. Otherwise, in the case of Shadowrun, we don't have a consistent point of view on the world and events of SR. And I'd rather have a consistent amount of POVs on a subject versus a crapton of views from people who I will likely never see again.

And if you wanted the characters to be THAT disposable, you might as well not have Shadowtalk at all in any of the SR books.

This is not a compelling argument against doing this, you know.

Then it's settled - the blood of dragons flows through Bulls veins.



My previous post should have been "Do the latter (it will make people scream and tear their hair out)." seems like it came across "Do the latter and it will make people scream and tear their hair out."

Bull is Garlthik. Makes his constant griping about 'dem young uns' much more believable.
Discuss.

(Which reminds me of him referring to my elf character born in 2021 as 'young woman' in a missions adventure. She was properly amused.)

On a more serious note: I like the quality idea. And I've never come up with any ork character who's lived that long, so it really doesn't matter if someone just says it is so. Novels aren't sourcebooks, but they are canon. Doesn't mean that Kham's father can't be a freak of nature with especially long lifespan. If that's a pet peeve ... get one that matters, IMO

Fastjack on the other hand is getting old. He's 76 in 2075 and has led a life that's been in the shadows for over half a century, which is usually not very conducive to an individual's health. To my knowledge he usually doesn't appear in person on runs so he could still be fit physically (ha!), but who knows what kind of brain damage he has? Also, he strikes me as the kind of person, who is too paranoid, maybe with a dash of schizophrenia, to allow anyone to doctor around in his brain chemistry. He's probably very opposed to léonization or gene therapies.

10 points is not expensive at all, it's like two levels of matrial arts.

Why? It makes things easier, not harder. The PCs are supposed to be able to overcome the so called challenges. So called because most of time I see GMs such as yourself thinking along similar lines, that they somehow have to "challenge" their PCs; when the fact of the matter is the players of such characters don't really want a challenge. My job as a GM actually gets easier and I am happy to see such characters in convention games.

When I see such powergamed(I am assuming that by powergaming, the characters are in fact more powerful) characters, it brings a smile to my face. I do not need to worry so much about the characters not being able to succeed and I have a less stressful time running the game. The players are happy that their characters succeed. And everyone goes home happy.

Sometimes I wish the writers would simply write up a set of powergamed/min-maxed pregen characters using every quality or such combination that people may see as broken or overpowered and write them into the canon.

It's expensive relative to the mechanical gain.

Now imagine Old Man Jones'es reaction, having 21 years on your young woman.


My aforementioned Missions character has Asthma and Infirm to simulate old age. I wouldn't be surprised if FastJack has similar.



-k

Pretty strong words there. I do -not- have a source to cite, but I remember the "Some goblinized orcs do not age at the accelerated rate" Thing too, and I've not read the novels. It's out there somewhere.

Throttle down mate. It's all good.

If it makes you happy, Falconer, none of my orks live longer than normal ork lifespan. That said, it's never actually come up in play or in my fiction featuring orks (which, on the published front, is admittedly nil at this point, though I'm trying to change that).

I frankly don't see what your beef is, however. It's not something that comes up all that often.

I'm working on the Redmond puzzle. Is "The building on the NeoNET grid is not next to a building with loud music from it" supposed to also mean that they cannot be the same building. It seems reasonable to say being in the same building does not fit the meaning of the sentence, but it doesn't say it can't happen. And sometimes authors of puzzles like their stupid tricks like that (Haha, I only said they weren't next to each other, and you assumed they weren't the same).

Also, are we to assume that west of means one building west of? Same with between.

All of which is interesting and passionate and I don't entirely disagree with -- but you still didn't answer my question about how often it actually comes up, folks so desperately clinging to that one line from a "pulp novel" from decades ago. You're acting like orks are just rushing out of their retirement homes and hopping onto Harleys to swoop down and ruin your every game, or something, when from the sound of things you're just touchy about this subject because people vocally disagreed with you about it once or twice on the internet (which is, well, kind of what the internet is for). I agree with you that orkish aging (and their other metaracial statistics) need to be taken into consideration a little more (or I wouldn't have written some of the recent material I did, in LoP, for instance)...but I just don't get why it's like this exposed nerve to you.

I DO want to say, though, that I find it a little weird you feel like metaracism isn't really a "thing" any more in "the current setting." I can only assume your SR games and my SR games happen in different neighborhoods, or you focus on different sections of the sourcebooks than I focus on (or write myself). Metaracism is very much still there, and if anything it's only getting uglier -- because now SURGElings are hated on, too, and Technomancers, and fresh waves of outrage and disgust at the Infected, and on and on and on. More player character types should be eating social penalty modifiers and having NPCs straight-up give them the cold shoulder now than ever before.

If they're not, in your games...why not?

Guys... lets not derail into the orc bits...

The only reason I posted was because I was taking issue with Bull's comment that it was in a few old sourcebooks when after a lot of looking the only printed reference anyone who cared could find was the pulp novel. I can buy that there's canon that by some dint just hasn't been important enough to publish for years upon years... just don't tell me it has been published in anything more authoritative than a novel when it hasn't.


I'll make one more post to better explain to Critias my frustration and then drop it... if others want to continue start a new thread...

Because I so dislike the problems of BP chargen (how it encourages ultra-specialists by buying everything as high as possible and leaving the rest as low as possible). I switched over to karma... using the german errata/reprint 'fix' to give it some fair play. However, probably because most of my friends are engineers... they really point-gamed the system something fierce. I continued to see a swarm of 'human-looking' orcs. Most with backstories which simply don't fit an orc... And very prone to 'abusing' the karmagen rules to play against type... (pocket the free attributes.. then play a human for all intensive purposes.. but with more points to spend on mental and other attributes).

Think about this... if you're having old-age issues by your 30's... the normal 'human' life cycle doesn't work so well. The whole... go to school til you're 18... then send you off for another say 6 years of schooling... etc. More 'work experience' before entering the shadows... so the characters tend to end up in their 30's before they've even started to hit the streets in the these cases. You don't have 30 odd years to pay-off the costs of advanced and extended education... as well as pay for raising a next generation and place to live etc... So what I'm seeing is a lot of... this is a human... just taking advantage of orc stats... and due purely to a fluff decision (born orc or goblinize as a teenager) I can ignore almost all the drawbacks which come with orcs.

So rather than playing an orc, as an orc in the setting... grew up faster than the other kids... had to fight constantly with the rest of his litter for care and attention from an overworked mother/father whatnot... I seem to end up with a stable of orcs who are for all intensive purposes... just humans, with human range attributes... completely with human-looking. Even I've been tempted to the dark side once to do it in another game which didn't use karmagen when I was feeling really point-hosed trying to do two things at once (be a face and a bodyguard type sammy at the same time).

The best words I can use to describe this... is they've chosen to be an orc, but have done everything perfectly to not have to play an orc. They have everything perfectly in place to for most intensive purposes ignore that they're an orc at all.

Like I said... if you care to continue this discussion... start a new thread to avoid derailing this one...


About the shadowland/jackpoint bits...

The problem is in their shadowrun line of work like this... I'd expect probably ~20% casualties over a 10 year span maybe approaching 33% (or higher if some fell event were to happen). In game we're lucky if one or two of the 'favorites' has kicked the bucket. Instead they're all alive and kicking... and the braggadicio makes me feel like most of them are more poseurs than actual criminals doing very dangerous things in a world far more dangerous than we live in today.

I see jackpoint as it exists now as far more akin to an 'organized crime' syndicate. Quite frankly it's far too organized.

And I stick by the frat boy type mentality... you have the 'low-end' frat boys like Slamm-O... then you have the ultra-preppy Harvard business frat types. Quite frankly... i see Clockwork and the financiers as far more believable than the rest... and far more paranoid. It's not that he's overly likeable... it's that he seems to fit the game world in the most believable manner to me. And the financiers are in the lower risk bracket and their primary currency is information.


So once again... bring back Shadowland... it's one thing to have a stable of heavy regular posters. It's quite another when *ALL* of your posters are seemingly immortal regulars. I'd like to see more random commentary from the guys actually doing the work who don't always make it back and sometimes only post once then are gone.

You'd know to assign more 'value' to a regular posters word than a one-shot guy. Or take a 'nod' from the P2.0 stuff they put up... put the posters name and a 'reputation' score next to em.... to make it easier for people who don't regularly read everything to follow who's who... and who probably is talking smack... vs who probably has it right.

And it allows me to say such things as "In Ork Years, Bull Is Dead."

Not putting too fine a point on it. The problem isn't with orcs. Or even the few people that may play orcs that don't have the highly accelerated lifespans. The problem is, as you've outlined it, you play with guys that play numbers and 'human orcs'. That's not a problem with orcs or the game. Your group is screwing it up. Your buddies are the ones playing orcs as humans but tougher. Not the game or the setting. That's a "Player problem" not a "Setting or book" Problem. If your group played them "Right" Then your complaints are gone.

Yes 'anything can be abused'. That goes for well... ANYTHING. Your group is abusing 'the orc'. I can understand your frustration, but just because your group is abusing that aspect, doesn't make it broke. Just means your group needs to get hit with the core book up side the head and told 'If you wanna play a tough human. Make a tough human. If you wanna play an orc, play an orc"

Problem solved.

I disagree on the Jackpoint stuff as well. There have been deaths. Some of them public Some of them "____ isn't around any more" "Yeah he/she didn't make it out of _____" type things. I much prefer the group of NPC's we can get to know and understand their motivations, their drives and such. How Netcat is a techno, how she and Slammo had a kid, how Clockwork is horribly racist against Netcat, which is compounded on the fact that he's a Hobgoblin, who are some of the most hated and persecuted meta-types on the planet by their own kind. (( The Arabic nations where they hail from tried to eradicate them asap. etc)). So Clockworks intense hatred of the Technomancers could be seen as a reflection of how he, is seen in his own society.

I much prefer the people you get to know vs "Random poster 1 with funky net name" and "Random poster 2-12" commenting on stuff. As pointed out, when you go to boards on the net, you get to know people on those boards if for nothing else, shared interests. You generally don't get to know people on boards you don't go to, as you don't share the interests with them. Totally open and random posting wouldn't really happen with a group of mercenary criminals and deniable assets, as if for no other reason, you wouldn't want to rat your self out to the authorities.

Is this anything like the elf-shaped humans from other games? Or any other non-human player race that many people play more as human with funny bits glued on.

Because this isn't exactly just a Shadowrun issue. You see it in every game.


-k

Guys... don't derail the thread... start a new one if you wish to discuss players who don't play their type.

lol You're the one who did it though, and now are going "I wanna throw it out there but not reply when you respond to me!!" Why don't you start one?

Because I made one last post to reply to Critias's questions... then tried to move back to squarely only dealing with shadowland/jackpoint which is the subject of this thread. Its not good netiquette to intentionally derail threads... it happens accidentally... but the proper response is to spin off to a new thread once you've realized it's happening.

I only meant to call Bull on making a false assertion... that was where i thought it would end. Not derail into my reasons for this view... and problems in the game mechanics...

And the playing to type problem is a good enough topic for it's own thread... not buried on page 8 of another.

Indeed.

By the way, I am deeply disappointed by the lack of wanton speculation about "Lofwyr’s and Alamais’ final battle"...

That's probably something, I'll completely ignore in my game world. I simply don't see why dragons that have lived in a highly ritualized society for tens of thousands of years suddenly start killing each other off when they are an endangered species by definition.
Aztlan wtfzergrushing Sirrurg may happen, but if so, I'll decide to let Aztech be gobbled up, because they just commited a fuckton of their military ressources and money to kill one individual. Definition of a pyrrhic victory, IMO.
The dragon metaplot isn't my thing at all, sorry to say.

The way it reads, Aztlan tries to fight a dragon the way you fight a high-end megaunit in Supreme Commander: throw stuff at it until it's HP are used up and take in stride you've just lost around 500 units. I kind of hope the write-up will be saner than that, but the dragon war plot so far ... doesn't make me very hopeful.

It gives me the same feel as well.

I'm kinda digging it so far. It really gives you the feel of why people don't mess with the Great Dragons. Because they really ARE That Badass. It explains why Ghostwalker gets away with the crap he gets away with, and why ... I think it was Aden? Got away with pretty much Nuking Tehran. Why Sirrung got away with what he did for so long. Because it'd take --that much-- to take him down. Much less him and the crew he'd been building.

They're not just big lizards. They really are superpowers unto themselves. Taking one down should be epic.

I think there are some people that are under the impression, that "With the right gear, we could take down a Great Dragon on a run", and this sort of thing, the armies and navies and airforces needed to take out Sirrung, just really blow that out of the water and takes away some of that 'player character badassery'. So it kinda tweeks them off.

(( not accusing anyone in specific. Just a sort of feeling I get.))

Actually, no, they're not, not according to Street Legends.


You are barking up the wrong tree there. Player badassery has nothing to do with that. A dislike of videogame style power projection, however, definitly has.

Shadowrun is, in fact, a game of glass cannons. This is not D&D with it's high-level gameplay that is more like WoW (poke the boss for damage half an hour), it's usually possible to kill everything in a few shots with sufficiently powerful equipment. Which is actually realistic more than anything.

However, to avoid being downed by a lucky Sea Sabre, Shadowrun Greats usually hide behind minions, armies and deception. It's not like they're superpowers unto themselves (well, major powers, since there ARE no superpowers in Shadowrun) because they're 100th level great dragons with thousands of HP, it's because they organise a major power's worth of power in minions, wealth and magic around them. Just like I think a lucky zero Karma punk with a gun should be able to down a thousand karma character in one shot in direct confrontation. Makes the game deadlier, keeps everyone on their toes and forces people to be smart instead of relying on brute force.

Ehhh... I don't think statting out creatures of this type ever works right. They're not meant to have stats. They're beyond that.

I've played rpgs for 20 years now, statting out things like Great Dragons in SR just always falls flat. No matter what numbers appear beside them.

So you've conveniently overlooked them having stats in every core rules book since 1E (not certain about 4E, but there, we've got Street Legends)?

And yet, the story as we're seeing shows that you're just not right. Quite LITERAL armies of 1000s, including ground units, Airforces of 100s if not 1000s of drones and entire blue water navies multiple attack ships with SHIP weapons, are pounding on one great dragon for hours and hours and hours. As per what we've read, he's still not dead yet. He's putting up a hell of a fight. Yes he's using his spirits and what not, but still.

*Shrugs* Again it seems to be that misconception that "One guy with a gun could get a lucky shot and take out a Great Dragon" (( Or even "one shadow run team")) where in the setting and fiction, such thing is ludicrous.

Might work for the "Normal" ((Non great? Medium? lol they sound derogatory with out meaning to be)) Dragons, but not the big boys. I honestly do think that there are some out there, that see such a foe, as some how taking away their own power.

Again. I'm speaking in generalities. Not aiming it at anyone here.

Boys, you're both right. If the dragon just sits around, sure, he can be taken down by "one guy with a gun" (Though it better be a damn big gun to get through their armor and soak dice). But generally, yeah... Dragons are crazy smart, have vast resources, and are well fortified and have a LOT of contingency plans in place. So under normal circumstances, you're gonna need more than one guy or one shadowrunner team.

Bull

Which is why I don't like the dragons story at all. Because it is bad writing.


Straw man. Did you read what you quote?


I'd be inclined to agree, but the dragons in the dragons war haven't been acting smart, just crazy. They were asking to be directly attacked, pissed each other off for no reason, dragged things into public that really weren't needed, and then seem to wonder why people start building dedicated anti-dragon weapons (not that spirit copilots and drones shittings mall drones will do aynthing against dragons, but hey, it's a start!).

And there's a difference between a shadowrunner team and 500+ air units, entire divisions of a major land army and half a country's blue water navy, including at least two carrier groups. One carrier group should be more than enough, especially with the kind of massive mojo Aztechnology can bring to bear in their teocalli. Sacrifice enough POWs and they could probably match Sirrug's magic blow by blow. And since dragons are not crazy enough to use blood magic themselves (or rather, that would mark Sirrug a death candidate for all other GDs), there's precious little he could do about it. It might make other greats consider knocking Aztlan down a peg, but then again, they chickened out before a blood magic backed bunch of crazies witha love for stepped pyramids before.

It's not a "misconception", though, it's just people testing the mechanics rather than the story. You technically can kill a Great Dragon, speaking purely in terms of dice and stats and numbers. Whether that should be the case? Who is to say?

You may argue that Great Dragons should never have been statted out, but they repeatedly have been, and they currently are, and that means people are going to try to toy around with those stats. Every tabletop game has it's own system of numerical mechanics, and that always invites stress-testing and limit-breaking. Don't fault the players who are just trying to break the system (and who may even suceed) purely for their own amusement, fault either the story for not matching the mechanics, or the mechanics for not matching the story.

The game creators could have easily just given Great Dragons stats that make them impossible to kill. Attributes of 100 across the board would plainly spell out "Sorry, bub, no chance in hell" to any player even imagining if they could ever kill a dragon. But over and over, Great Dragons have been given pretty consistant stats that place killing them in the range of being at least possible, if not likely. Why? Who can say? But with nothing else to go off of, there's no real grounds for deriding others just because they want to try to best that extreme challenge, story-be-damned.

~Umi

One guy with a really big gun could theorectically take out a Great Dragon. But. Those armies could well be Grunts. If those armies are a single (although extremely large) unit of Grunts with a low Professional Rating, guess what? Then it is also theorectically possible for huge armies to attack a Great Dragon and fail to kill it which we see in the fiction.

In setting and in fiction, it has yet been done. This much is true.

Incidentally Falconer, there is a published orc born as an orc that is pushing 50 (and whose stats are pretty impressive, physical and mental).

I'm only sorry I never saw this when it came up originally. We've had that for the entire time now. We admit we may not be a normal gaming story group, but when the story arc has literally evolved and handed down character to character ever since SR1 one month after Gencon that year... Yeah, we've been around a while.