Ancient History wrote:Yeah, just recently in fact. Crimsondude/James Meiers killed off Aina...or was going to, I dunno. Because of some scheduling snafu (read: someone published a book before they were supposed to) it got leaked and there was the slightest of shock about it.
In this instance, it's actually that Street Legends got published right on time, but other books are getting published after they're supposed to. I don't know all the reasons for the delays 'cause I'm not doing any major writing for either of the late ones, but basically some wires got crossed and Legends references shit that happens in a later book.
Also, Tír na nÓg is Gaelic, not just a random bunch of syllables strung together to fuck with you.
"Land of the Young" or something, isn't it? "Land of Youth?" Something like that.
Yup. And it's distinctly *not* Ireland, but an unspecified island to the west of Ireland that's "off the map"
And of course they went and killed off the one immortal elf people actually had a chance of taking a liking to . .
Basically, they killed off somebody who had only Harlekin himself be their better at magical power . .
And the only one who had a chance of influencing him to do stuff aside from playing SR2070 WOW . .
And who was, for a time, the head of the Draco Foundation, a world wide operating AA or AAA? level corporation . .
Basically, they killed off one of the 5 most influential characters ever. And one of maybe 3 who were kinda likeable . .
Instead of killing off the Immoral Elf Eva Braun . .
The only thing we know that will hit Tir na nog HARD is the fact that they basically do everything whith magic and on a scale close enough to the great ghost dance from time to time that the horrors, once they appear, will go there first from aztlan, establish their foot hold there and then take over europe and once they have europe and the americas, crush asia and australa between them . .
Welcome, to IronHell.
Shrapnel wrote:
TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.
Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
Frank and I had the discussion once about how Tir na nOg should be completely unimportant in defining elven anything. Ireland today has a population of 6 million, all human. The Tir has maybe a population of 4 million elves once you factor in the birth rates, VITAS, and elf-wankery immigration policies. That's the population of Seattle. Neo-Tokyo has a population of over 40 million - if they had the standard 10% of elves, then they have as many elves in one city as all of the Tir. Then you look at India - fuck, they have a billion people, or near enough. They could fill six Neo-Tokyo's full of elves.
So, technically, it's only thinly settled, mostly empty wilderness . .
Welcome, to IronHell.
Shrapnel wrote:
TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.
Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
Yeah, the elves are cool and all, but aren't there space stations in SR, so if they actually became a problem you could just perform an orbital bombardment (not up on my rules).
OgreBattle wrote:"And thus the denizens learned that hating Shadzar was the only thing they had in common, and with him gone they turned their venom upon each other"
-Sarpadian Empires, vol. I
TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.
Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
The IEs are fine, because they're so few and far between they don't ever need to come up. The current CGL killing one off is just a sad attempt to make themselves feel legitimate in the most futile manner. They already stated characters that haven't been stated in 20 years, now they wanna kill one off that had a book written about her. The trifecta would be a startling change that effects the game world at a basic and fundamental level.
Sort of like when Dunkelzahn was "killed", Haley's Comet flew over or SR4 fixed the rules. Only this time by the folks who brought you War!
It's too bad there's so few people anymore who even understand the setting enough to see how pathetic a move this is.
Ancient History wrote:Frank and I had the discussion once about how Tir na nOg should be completely unimportant in defining elven anything. Ireland today has a population of 6 million, all human. The Tir has maybe a population of 4 million elves once you factor in the birth rates, VITAS, and elf-wankery immigration policies. That's the population of Seattle. Neo-Tokyo has a population of over 40 million - if they had the standard 10% of elves, then they have as many elves in one city as all of the Tir. Then you look at India - fuck, they have a billion people, or near enough. They could fill six Neo-Tokyo's full of elves.
It's not so much about numbers, as it is about money and connections.
Ancient History wrote:T'be fair, in my version of the end of the Artifacts adventures, the players earned the right to shoot Alachia in the face.
And it would have worked!
Shooting Immortal Elf Eva Braun in the Face, who has NO IMPORTANCE WHAT SO EVER in the world is perfectly viable!
Welcome, to IronHell.
Shrapnel wrote:
TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.
Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
Ancient History wrote:Frank and I had the discussion once about how Tir na nOg should be completely unimportant in defining elven anything. Ireland today has a population of 6 million, all human. The Tir has maybe a population of 4 million elves once you factor in the birth rates, VITAS, and elf-wankery immigration policies. That's the population of Seattle. Neo-Tokyo has a population of over 40 million - if they had the standard 10% of elves, then they have as many elves in one city as all of the Tir. Then you look at India - fuck, they have a billion people, or near enough. They could fill six Neo-Tokyo's full of elves.
It's not so much about numbers, as it is about money and connections.
And xenophobe, isolated Tir na nOg has neither money nor connections.
Immortal Elves are nothing but stupid fanboy-made elf-wank material.
No. IEs are hinted at from the very first sourcebook in the very first edition, and introduced in the very first trilogy of novels. IEs are an old, old part of the setting. They did indeed become fanboy (and fangirl) wank/slitch material, and that did get very far out of hand indeed.
That's because instead of simply hinting at them as powerful, rich people, likely tied to a corp or so, and allowing every GM to detail them as needed, they were made uber-fighter-mages who personally kick ass and all that shit.
If written as pointy-eared versions of Damien Knight, and of course greatly reduced in numbers, and not tied to anything in history, they'd been an acceptable part of the setting.
Ancient History wrote:In other words, if they were just fucking elves and not particularly special in any way. <shrug>
Immortal elves acting (way) behind the scenes, plotting against Dragons, megacorps, possibly vampires and each other are not special enough? That's the problem right there.
The original Harlequin campaign would have worked as well without the "and they are so uber, they can overpower the whole team without dice rolling needed" lines in it. Heck, since our (stupid and not good at english) GM missed that particular line we knocked out Ehran in that campaign and dropped him off at H's feet at the finale, and it didn't really wreck the adventure.
There's really no need for the IEs to be uber-mages who acted as Elizabeth I and Eva Braun among other things during history.
You keep saying that. That's only really applicable to about two or three of the IEs, and then only in the novels that are never acknowledged in the actual gamebooks in any way (read: Worlds Without End and Black Madonna) - and even then, Alachia was never specifically called out as Eva Braun, she was just some Nazi bastard's fuckbuddy.
Now, Harlequin and Harlequin's Back are horrible railroads as far as adventures go, but it's important to remember that the majority of players appear to just jump onboard and yell "Choo-choo!" Those books sold. That's while Loren Coleman wanted the Artifacts series to be or lead into Harlequin 3: Bigger Ears, Smaller Cornholes.
The thing about IEs is that they are old and powerful and unknown. The thing that makes IEs effective as a plot device is that they predate the current paradigm - and yeah, especially in the early days of SR there were overtones of Tolkein-esque elves.
What pisses you and everyone else off is the fact that Nigel D. Findley (rightly) stated "if you give it stats, players will kill it." That wasn't supposed to make all the IEs complete untouchable badasses, it was just intended to keep the PCs from putting two in the back of Harlequin's head and completely hosing the adventure. People took that idea and ran with it declaring that every IE is a marty stu/mary sue unkillable bastard, when (as you show in your experience of Harlequin) that's not necessary or even intended.
Palpatine and Vader have had games stats since the WEG years and they're the hub of the Star Wars franchise.
I had no issue with Harlequin and the other IEs during the 1st/2nd ed. years. My players were happy to hop on the train and treat IEs as a "force of nature" rather than NPCs. I also never read crappy tie-in novels so that probably helped me keep my sanity.
SR suffers from a lack of creativity and understanding of pace in plot writing... and doling out the same stew we've already had for years. The insect spirit metaplot was set into motion in the SR Universe on Day 1 and didn't climax until the second edition. Old plots, that were fresh for the game at the time, are now re-hashed to tap cheap nostalgia (IEs and GDs are the go-to antagonist for lazy writers [looking at you, Ghostwalker]) and new plots are rushed in and out of the game so fast it would make Chris Claremont blush.
My prediction: Revenge of the Insect Spirits: The Buggering.
Ancient History wrote:What pisses you and everyone else off is the fact that Nigel D. Findley (rightly) stated "if you give it stats, players will kill it." That wasn't supposed to make all the IEs complete untouchable badasses, it was just intended to keep the PCs from putting two in the back of Harlequin's head and completely hosing the adventure. People took that idea and ran with it declaring that every IE is a marty stu/mary sue unkillable bastard, when (as you show in your experience of Harlequin) that's not necessary or even intended.
Adding plot protection to an NPC is turning them into Marty/Mary Stu. No other adventure I recall needed NPCs to be untouchable. If they are to be untouchable by PCs, well, they should not interact with them in the flesh. There's the matrix, there's agents and strawmen, there's astral projection (in a pinch) to avoid getting capped in the head from behind.
Wesley Street wrote:
My prediction: Revenge of the Insect Spirits: The Buggering.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.
--The horror of Mario
Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
fectin wrote:If you'd like your players to not kill off your plot hooks, ask your players not to kill your plot hooks. It's that simple.
I much prefer making an NPC too powerful to be killed or even 'too cool for stats' to this technique; I think that what you're suggesting would immediately knock down the fourth wall and ruin immersion.
On the other hand, conscientious players really probably needn't even be told. But I'd prefer a situation where their characters are free to try...and fail miserably.
On the other other hand, I think that shooting Alachia/Aina Dupree/Nadja Daviar in the face for money can only be a good thing. (I still have a soft spot for Harlequin and Ehran, who to me both work as characters in the literary sense, especially Harlequin. But we had this discussion 40 or so pages back in The Shadowrun Situation thread.)
Last edited by Neurosis on Sat Sep 10, 2011 6:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
For a minute, I used to be "a guy" in the TTRPG "industry". Now I'm just a nobody. For the most part, it's a relief.
Trank Frollman wrote:One of the reasons we can say insightful things about stuff is that we don't have to pretend to be nice to people. By embracing active aggression, we eliminate much of the passive aggression that so paralyzes things on other gaming forums.
hogarth wrote:As the good book saith, let he who is without boners cast the first stone.
TiaC wrote:I'm not quite sure why this is an argument. (Except that Kaelik is in it, that's a good reason.)
fectin wrote:If you'd like your players to not kill off your plot hooks, ask your players not to kill your plot hooks. It's that simple.
I much prefer making an NPC too powerful to be killed or even 'too cool for stats' to this technique; I think that what you're suggesting would immediately knock down the fourth wall and ruin immersion.
On the other hand, conscientious players really probably needn't even be told. But I'd prefer a situation where their characters are free to try...and fail miserably.
On the other other hand, I think that shooting Alachia/Aina Dupree/Nadja Daviar in the face for money can only be a good thing. (I still have a soft spot for Harlequin and Ehran, who to me both work as characters in the literary sense, especially Harlequin. But we had this discussion 40 or so pages back in The Shadowrun Situation thread.)
If your players want to kill an NPC then that NPC probably deserves it. Don't want your players to kill an NPC? Play it in a way to not make them want it.
Of course all the uber-elf-"far too powerful for you" shit NPCs usually fail at not making players want to kill them off right away.
Newsflash: Many players hate the DM-NPCs that can do everything better than you can and are untouchable.
My players absolutely loved interacting with Harlequin because of the way that he was roleplayed; exceedingly charismatic, awe-inspiring, a "force of nature" as someone put it. I doubt they'd have tried to off him, and not just because narrative descriptive detail made it clear that such an attempt would be flagrantly suicidal.
Also the original adventure was structured in such a (good) way that Harlequin being 'better than the PCs at everything" was never an issue; there was never a situation where they were trying to do the same thing as him and could be upstaged, and there was a very good (if slightly arbitrary) reason why he couldn't "just do it himself".
For a minute, I used to be "a guy" in the TTRPG "industry". Now I'm just a nobody. For the most part, it's a relief.
Trank Frollman wrote:One of the reasons we can say insightful things about stuff is that we don't have to pretend to be nice to people. By embracing active aggression, we eliminate much of the passive aggression that so paralyzes things on other gaming forums.
hogarth wrote:As the good book saith, let he who is without boners cast the first stone.
TiaC wrote:I'm not quite sure why this is an argument. (Except that Kaelik is in it, that's a good reason.)
