Shadowruns Dragon Rant

[Shrieking Banshee]

Well I just finished Dragonfall. It was a fun game and I liked it. The plot was fun, the setting was fun, and I don't care what anybody else thinks.

But the ending PISSED ME OFF! After this gigantic battle, it feels like I have been shamalaned:

"You think that what you did was important and determined by you? NOPE! DRAGON DID IT!"

That pissed me right to hell off. Whats with Shadowrun and only allowing their super special Dragons or established elves to do anything! Or twist it around that a Dragon/ Elf did it somehow. To the point of idiocy! So this Dragon left the future of Dragonkind in the hands of some Shadowrunners? Couldn't do anything better? Or are you so super duper godlike that you knew how everything would play out exactly and just wanted some fun!

Just fucking settle on what you want the message to be. Is it:

A: Your an awesome punk and you can make a difference!
or
B: Your utterly worthless, and just sit and watch us jerk off our favorite characters.

I get so mad I just wish I let all the Dragons die, but I bet that he had that all covered anyway LOLOLOLOLOLOLZ!

Might as well play world of Darkness then. At least I know where I stand there.

[OgreBattle]

You'd like SR:Hong Kong more then, the main plot of that one is driven by (meta)humans. Even the spirit god stuff happens because of human geomancy.

Rachter in particular has a big glorious vision on the future that kind of sounds like building mecha bad enough to take out dragons.

[Shrieking Banshee]

That sound great. I purchased all of them in a steam sale, so happy to see where this goes.

[sendaz]

Might as well play world of Darkness then. At least I know where I stand there.

Well on the plus side, Shadowrun doesn't have Dragons humping Gators or similar, though that may be down to a size issue.

Now if there were some bigger dinos still around, would SR have had some Dragon on Dino action?

Thankfully we may never know.

[Blade]

Having a dragon run it all from behind the scenes is a common theme in Shadowrun, it's even more common with Lofwyr in Europe.
We have a joke in my gaming group whenever something weird or unexpected happen we go:
"Meanwhile in Essen: 'Everything is going according to my plans.'"

It's also a common cyberpunk trope: you're just a cog in the machine, etc. However, there's also the part where one desperate punk can blow up the whole world (and not care about it), and this is clearly something that Shadowrun is missing.

[Shrieking Banshee]

Well its not missing it. Just don't have shit suddenly take credit for what you did. Thats obnoxious and so unmotivating.
See some evil plot brewing? Whatever, a Dragon has a handle on that, and probably a rival Dragon as well.

Either have the Dragon hire you from the beginning or have them be blindisghted by this BS. Its just obnoxious when somebody runs and takes credit for what you did.

[Nath]

Just fucking settle on what you want the message to be. Is it:

A: Your an awesome punk and you can make a difference!
or
B: Your utterly worthless, and just sit and watch us jerk off our favorite characters.

Cyberpunk settings are supposed to state "You're utterly worthless." Period. Megacorporations ought to be impersonal entity. And should you ever reach the shareholders, you'd only find bodies floating in jars or people who are anyway completely clueless about what is going on in the actual world.

Shadowrun is not doing that, on several different levels.

Over the years, it introduced more and more characters with backstories and motivations at the top level. Not just dragons or immortal elves. So instead of megacorporations murdering and sabotaging each other assets for a 1% market share, we have Renraku chairman of the board trying to get revenge over Neonet CEO for ripping off their joint venture years ago.

One reason for this is that organizations are harder to describe. Rather than trying to establish distinct style, culture and methods for each corporations, the authors will either stick to different national stereotypes, or put and describe different people heading those. The much reviled Horizon corp actually stood out as a rare attempt of introducing an actual corporate culture instead of a group of NPC (what doomed it was its unceremonial inclusion into the setting at a top level and repeated attempts to overcompensate by glorifying its performances and skills).

And because everyone attention span is limited, there's only so much room in the setting for actors. Authors will always use the same stable, a few dozens of established names.

Among them, dragons and imortal elves got a particular treatment. There is a common "post-Deities and Demigods syndrom" among authors that make them take extra measures to make it virtually impossible to kill important NPC. Especially when they're involved in metaplots.
Because Shadowrun setting have the previous age of magic several thousand years old, they had a perfect excuse to stretch the system to its limit and give immortal and near-immortal character ridiculous stats to start with, then ignore most of the system.
Thus they were made not only invulnerable but omnipotent characters. Because, despite what the saying says, violence is a solution (just one that creates further problems, about which you don't care when you're invulnerable and immortal).
The issue with omnipotent characters is that you cannot explain how they can not get their will done - except when facing each other. In Shadowrun's case, it's even more problematic because the game very name refers to the action of hiring someone to do something as a central concept. The fact Shadowrun had to resort to made-up traditions to justify immortal elves and dragons to hire shadowrunners is telling (in Harlequin and Survival of the Fittest). And everythign must go according to their plan because you cannot explain how it could be otherwise.

Finally, authors want to surprise their audience. And they have basically two solutions to achieve it: unveiling a secret or bringing up an unexpected event. That could be a financial secret or an unexpected geopolitical event. But it's so much easier to throw out something magic-related, giving once again dragons and immortal elves the major role.

[hyzmarca]

Really, most dragons are killable. They require anti-tank weaponry to do so, but that's actually within the grasp of elite runners.

But yes, the lack of self-determination is a major cyberpunk theme. And the fact is that Shadowrunners are basically gun prostitutes. Instead of sex, you pay them to shoot people. If you hire them, there is presumably something that you want done.

Also, Dragonfall is most certainly not about Lofwyr's plans. He's aware of what's happening, somewhat, but hasn't moved on it. If the PCs stop it, then Lofwyr doesn't have to bother doing anything about it, and will offer the PCs a job because they're talented and useful. If the PCs decide to kill all dragons, then Lofwyr does not have a backup plan, or any plan at all, and he dies along with all the other dragons.

Basically, Lofwyr knew that Vauclair had Firewing, and did not actually give enough of a shit about her to bother with a rescue attempt. He just monitored the situation, and not very closely. He wasn't aware of the whole virus that could kill all dragons, or if he was he didn't think it was anywhere near as viable as it really was. When the PCs stop all of that, he's impressed enough to offer them a job.

Second, Firewind was an asshole who flipped out and started randomly killing people because she didn't like the way human civilization developed during her hibernation. And she was shot down, by humans, severely wounded and held prisoner for decades and used in unethical medical experiments to create anti-dragon bioweapons.

Dragonfall aint' exactly dragon wank.

[Shady314]

You can also free APEX and she will defend the Anarch States and stop the corps from moving on them in one ending. Turning down his job offer and then having the Anarch States kick ass must be pretty humiliating for him and SK. I forget if that requires giving APEX the Dragon killing virus.

Anyways I always thought Lofwyr was totally bullshitting you as a negotiating tactic when trying to recruit you. Oh yeah I knew all about that but I also knew youre so awesome you could handle it with no assistance. It was just a big job interview! I could have done it myself of course with no problem but I wanted to give you a chance to shine. Congratulations you totally passed and now Im going to do you the enormous favor of hiring you. Isn't that great?

If he had any idea what Vauclair was about to do and did nothing he's dumber than shit. He was definitely stupid because he definitely knew something about Vauclair and decided the fucking Dragon Killer guy was not worth doing anything about. Apparently just because he was human.

[Shrieking Banshee]

It was the execution I realize as I calm down. After defeating the Final boss in a totally awesome showdown, there is this nice speech about how "The corporations just want us to believe we can't make a difference because we can!" only for Lofwyr to just swoop in and say "LOLZ everything happened because I let it happen" just makes it infuriating. At least for an ending. It doesn't feel crushing, it feels more like a GM that retroactively adds +5 to him DMPCs health so he could "Just survive perfectly in time to use a teleportation spell!".

After reading the other endings I realize it was much more Lofwyr compensating for inadequacies "Uh...yeah...I had a plan....Totally..." it just made me ripe pissed off at the time.