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Stroth posted:By stabbing them in the face. A proprietary, highly advanced, over the top weapon system that can be sold at ridiculous markup to security forces as "the only solution" to a problem seems entirely in line with the setting though.
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Nov 2, 2017 15:22
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Or be an adept with a weapon focus or the killing hands power. Spells also work perfectly fine.
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Nov 2, 2017 15:58
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Lack of Gravitas posted:Is it ever explained how the insect spirits were dealt with in the previous ages and/or why the same methods can't be used now? There's never been the kind of population density that there is in the 6th world, and in the 4th world literally everyone did some kind of magic and had a flaming sword so killing spirits wasn't that big of a deal. The combination of lots of poor and desperate people that can be used as hosts and a lack of proportionally available magic weapons is what's making them a problem this time.
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Nov 2, 2017 16:49
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Anticheese posted:Isn't it a thing in SR that the world is basically doomed to get eaten by stuff from outside our reality? The scary thing about bug spirits, from a metaplot standpoint, is not that they exist. They're a known quantity to the immortals of the setting, there's ways to beat them, even if they're a huge pain in the rear end and the population density of the Sixth World means wiping out the village they took over is a bigger deal than before. The scary thing about bug spirits is it has been less than a generation since magic came back, and they've already showed up. The timetable has been accelerated hugely, and that means dragons do not have a nice, comfortable couple centuries to prepare for the Horrors. They have less than twenty years. And there is no way we'll be ready in time to face them. I mean, there's a way that might buy everyone a little time- the Sacrifice of the Beloved King seemed to work okay in principle in the Fourth World- but who could possibly make themselves not only ruler of one of these mortal nations, but legitimately beloved, in that little time? And if you gently caress it up, that's it, you're dead, it's over, no Seventh World for you. [file photo: dunkelzahn for president dot jpeg]
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Nov 2, 2017 17:12
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Are you saying that (completely speculative fluff poo poo): the Shadowrun universe is doomed because Big D didn't live long enough to become Dragon JFK? Because holy poo poo, what a hook for a time travel story.
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Nov 2, 2017 17:24
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PMush Perfect posted:Are you saying that (completely speculative fluff poo poo): the Shadowrun universe is doomed because Big D didn't live long enough to become Dragon JFK? Because holy poo poo, what a hook for a time travel story. Read the last part of his post again.
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Nov 2, 2017 18:01
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Ze Pollack posted:The scary thing about bug spirits, from a metaplot standpoint, is not that they exist. They're a known quantity to the immortals of the setting, there's ways to beat them, even if they're a huge pain in the rear end and the population density of the Sixth World means wiping out the village they took over is a bigger deal than before. The scary thing about bug spirits is it has been less than a generation since magic came back, and they've already showed up. Fortunately for everyone involved, the Matrix went crazy over Milkshake Dragon, the wacky dragon who loved drinking milkshakes.
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Nov 2, 2017 23:47
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Glazius posted:Fortunately for everyone involved, the Matrix went crazy over Milkshake Dragon, the wacky dragon who loved drinking milkshakes. My milkshake dragon brings all the orcs to the yard.
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Nov 2, 2017 23:53
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Tiggum posted:That's my biggest problem with these games. They start out telling you you're some worthless nobody who can never make a real difference but then it turns out you're actually the person who ends up saving the world. It's like, they had this opportunity to do something fairly unique with their games but then decided to just do what everyone else does anyway. Meh, messing with the Universal Brotherhood/bugs was kind of a thing in tabletop, so shadowrunners being the “only ones who spot/stop the bugs” is a game idea with a long pedigree. I never played this one but when I heard “Universal Brotherhood” I knew enough Shadowrun to know where the story was going, because it went there before. And while the bugs are nasty we aren’t really “saving the world” here, Seattle maybe at most. Stroth posted:Astral spirits aren't invincible in the physical realm and you don't need special anti-magic guns to kill them. They do take a lot more killing than something made of flesh and blood, yes. But it's "bring the anti-tank guns" more killing. Not "create a top secret black ops weapon" more killing. To be fair the weapon here actually was created to kill the insect spirits in the RPG, just much later on in the tabletop universe (though perhaps here we’re just playing with a not ready for general use prototype). But yeah, the original anti-bug spirit adventures were more about finally getting a chance to pull the most insane guns that would be overkill 99% of the time in-game and going all Aliens in SR, not “you must have this plot ticket to survive”.
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Nov 3, 2017 00:26
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MadDogMike posted:To be fair the weapon here actually was created to kill the insect spirits in the RPG, just much later on in the tabletop universe (though perhaps here we’re just playing with a not ready for general use prototype). But yeah, the original anti-bug spirit adventures were more about finally getting a chance to pull the most insane guns that would be overkill 99% of the time in-game and going all Aliens in SR, not “you must have this plot ticket to survive”. Thid is kind of the core problem with videogame rpgs.Want to have that alien and powerful enemy, who just doesn't keel over because he forgot to switch on the nokill script. Don't have a mage to damage astral enemies? Whoops. There are some manatech weapons in the setting later, but those explode just in everybodies' faces, like the "Excalibur" by Ares, discussed earlier in the thread. You want the player to win the campaign no matter the build. Plot weapon enters the stage. It works quite well as justification for street sams and the always potent gun/decker hybrid in this game. Rigger? Eh. Mage or Shaman. That is just silly. Neverwinter Nights 2 had one, too. While the "Silver Sword of Gith" had a lot more buildup being that cool magic sword from other planes and did get some fun abilities, i was never a fan of that solution either.
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Nov 3, 2017 00:48
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Too bad they didn't decide to at least let the player chose a particular kind of weapon or spell or drone to use to deliver the plot damage with. Like, here's our new anti-bug spell or drone with special laser turret which boils the insect spirits innards into plasma which burns away their exoskeleton leaving nothing but dust.OutofSight posted:Neverwinter Nights 2 had one, too. While the "Silver Sword of Gith" had a lot more buildup being that cool magic sword from other planes and did get some fun abilities, i was never a fan of that solution either.
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Nov 3, 2017 00:57
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OutofSight posted:Thid is kind of the core problem with videogame rpgs.Want to have that alien and powerful enemy, who just doesn't keel over because he forgot to switch on the nokill script. Don't have a mage to damage astral enemies? Whoops. There are some manatech weapons in the setting later, but those explode just in everybodies' faces, like the "Excalibur" by Ares, discussed earlier in the thread. It's especially stupid because there's no real reason they couldn't have implemented other deployment methods to "fit" any other class (by actually just turning off the immortality mechanically.) Or if you wanted to be a little more in depth, make it a grenade with bonus accuracy and range that you use to prime enemies; hit them with it and then blast them with whatever while they're under the effect. It's a prototype weapon, so it doesn't need to match up exactly with the source material's final version.
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Nov 3, 2017 01:04
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About 6 years ago on this very forum I finished running the actual TT campaign the Universal Brotherhood part of this story is based on. Out of all the players, I think Beer For The Beer God (then, Blowupologist) is the only one who remains.
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Nov 3, 2017 05:45
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MadDogMike posted:To be fair the weapon here actually was created to kill the insect spirits in the RPG, just much later on in the tabletop universe (though perhaps here we’re just playing with a not ready for general use prototype). But yeah, the original anti-bug spirit adventures were more about finally getting a chance to pull the most insane guns that would be overkill 99% of the time in-game and going all Aliens in SR, not “you must have this plot ticket to survive”. Realistically, Telestrian probably has enough HTR teams within five minutes of travel from where he's standing at any given time to clean out this entire nest without the slightest problem. That's why this entire sequence is so horrible. They're trying to pander to the fanbase while simultaneously doing things that the fans who know these characters know make absolutely no sense in the setting.
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Nov 3, 2017 06:02
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Stroth posted:Realistically, Telestrian probably has enough HTR teams within five minutes of travel from where he's standing at any given time to clean out this entire nest without the slightest problem. That's why this entire sequence is so horrible. They're trying to pander to the fanbase while simultaneously doing things that the fans who know these characters know make absolutely no sense in the setting. Yeah, but those guys didn't save his sister/daughter/whatever and if the current, more fun, method fails he's always got those guys as back up. It's risk free!* *Please ignore the fact that this explanation assumes Telestrian isn't a smug, stuck up rear end in a top hat with no sense of fun, or in other words an elf.
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Nov 3, 2017 06:07
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FoolyCharged posted:Yeah, but those guys didn't save his sister/daughter/whatever and if the current, more fun, method fails he's always got those guys as back up. It's risk free!* So the reward for saving the life of his Heir is to be thrown into battle against immortal void spirits with only a janky rear end experimental weapon that you don't even know how to use and the backup of an immortal jackass juggalo who would happily leave you to die if it advances one of his inscrutable multi-millennia plans? I mean, that's absurdly assholish even by Elven Prince standards.
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Nov 3, 2017 06:13
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HTR teams are expensive. Shadowrunners are cheap and only get paid when they don't die. If you die, they get a good idea of the current scale of the threat and get rid of an outsider in the know about things they shouldn't. If you don't die, then yay, problem solved and you've got some sweet weapons testing data.
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Nov 3, 2017 06:46
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paragon1 posted:HTR teams are expensive. Shadowrunners are cheap and only get paid when they don't die. I'm pretty sure you only get combat data when your own teams get pointlessly murdered. Anime wouldn't lie to me about that.
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Nov 3, 2017 06:47
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paragon1 posted:If you don't die, then yay, problem solved and you've got some sweet weapons testing data. And it only cost him a million nuyen in addition to what he's already paying the HTR teams he's paying anyway.
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Nov 3, 2017 07:10
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HTR teams are expensive. All that time it takes to train them, equip them, etc. Sending 5-6 teams in presuming several of them die even with a moderate amount of intel costs a lot more than a million credits. Plus, they're being sent in with Harlequin. Worst comes to worst, Harlequin goes down with the Runners. I'm sure that's very much a win in his book. Also given the 'finale' seems to be merely hours after the Runner team has gotten the data, they've probably only had a very limited amount of time to make the prototype weapons. Presuming they only have enough to equip one team, why send a bunch of assault teams that have no way of fighting against the bugs other than as fodder? Runner team goes in first, dies but takes out some of the bugs. Gives you more time to make more prototypes and get more info on how well the bugs fight to brief your teams better. So my take is 'only a few weapons available, Harlequin -insisted-, it's only a million credits to pay out presuming they do survive'.. It's not like a million credits is a huge amount for a megacorp either.
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Nov 3, 2017 08:07
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Yeah that 10k you get for equipment is what a guy like Telestrian uses to tip his butler.
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Nov 3, 2017 16:17
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This section of the game is a little fanservicey but I think HBS wasn't sure how this game would play out (obviously, the series did quite well) and went a little hard on callbacks to established Shadowrun. At the time it really was a risk, but obviously in hindsight they hit on a really good formula and, well, DF and HK have been talked up enough in this thread. all I'm saying about Telestrian is he's got a few things on his plate here. You know Sam was his half brother, which could've caused him real problems for inheritance. You know about the insect spirits and Aegis and you helped out his family, unknowingly, so you're invested and he might be inclined to like you a tiny bit for that. Except for the part where he's probably not thrilled with the destruction you've caused when Jessica's already sending runners against his facilities so he's having to put up with a lot of poo poo. Basically for every positive thing you've done you also have a big negative question mark over your head, as far as Telestrian would be concerned. making you help him out - no matter what the end result is - will benefit the guy. Sure, in part, it's metagaming because you're the protagonist so of course you have to do it. But it's also reasonably well supported, all things considered.
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Nov 3, 2017 17:33
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Stroth posted:And it only cost him a million nuyen in addition to what he's already paying the HTR teams he's paying anyway. Given that a single Nuyen is about equivalent to a single USD today, that's actually a pretty significant cost savings. A regular soldier, just for training and equipment, costs half a million dollars. Special forces cost like, in the millions. If you go there, and as a result, you save even a single HTR dude's life, Telestrian is in the black here.
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Nov 3, 2017 23:24
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Stroth posted:So the reward for saving the life of his Heir is to be thrown into battle against immortal void spirits with only a janky rear end experimental weapon that you don't even know how to use and the backup of an immortal jackass juggalo who would happily leave you to die if it advances one of his inscrutable multi-millennia plans? The reward for saving his heir is not being shot for breaking into his building and the promise of payment if you deal with the bug problem. Being thrown into battle against the bugs is the reward for breaking into his building, killing his employees and stealing his experimental anti-bug weapon.
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Nov 3, 2017 23:45
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MJ12 posted:Given that a single Nuyen is about equivalent to a single USD today, that's actually a pretty significant cost savings. A regular soldier, just for training and equipment, costs half a million dollars. I thought a Nuyen was basically an early 1980s USD? Basically a million of those won't make your life perfect but will make it a lot easier and probably longer as well.
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Nov 4, 2017 00:11
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SIGSEGV posted:I thought a Nuyen was basically an early 1980s USD? Basically a million of those won't make your life perfect but will make it a lot easier and probably longer as well. I'm not sure on the precise Nuyen: USD conversion but the point is that a million Nuyen is not actually all that much when you're talking about the top 1% of special forces killing machines.
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Nov 4, 2017 01:40
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Psion posted:This section of the game is a little fanservicey but I think HBS wasn't sure how this game would play out (obviously, the series did quite well) and went a little hard on callbacks to established Shadowrun. At the time it really was a risk, but obviously in hindsight they hit on a really good formula and, well, DF and HK have been talked up enough in this thread. I think part of the reason they went maximum fanservice here is because so much of the rest of the game over explains itself for the benefit of people new to the setting. Both in terms of basic concepts and also story ideas, such as the Universal Brotherhood. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the setting could tell from the introducing UB in the first act means your runner is going on a bug hunt in the third. Nekomimi-Maiden posted:Mana levels rising draws and sustains the Horrors, astral spirits from a hellish far realm; I think the main thing that kept the Horrors from annihilating everything last time was the actions of the denizens of the Fourth World [humanoids, dragons, etc] slowing down their arrival and keeping them from making a beachhead until the 'magical tide' went out and the world went too mundane for the Horrors to invade; basically the mana levels dropping is the Russian Winter to the Horrors' Napoleon. Earthdawn was set just after the peak of the last magic cycle when ambient magic levels had fallen and most of the horrors, in particular the truely nasty "Doom Horrors" forced out of the world. The doom horrors literally ate the gods of the world during their last stay. The way a good chunk of metahumanity survived is that one particularly powerful civilization/empire found a way to first bury and magically ward cities that caused most of the ambient magic to flow around them instead of through them, in effect creating falloutshelters, only for horrors. Most of the wards failed and the cities fell, but few survived and this one empire became an unstoppable juggernauts in a ruined world. Additionally, horrors specifically feed on the negative emotions from sentient creatures, so there was probably less random destruction then you might imagine since tearing up nature isn't particularly sustaining.
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Nov 4, 2017 02:00
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I didn't know anything about the Shadowrun Universe before this game. Hell, if I'd known it came from the same guy who invented Battletech... This game is a great introduction. This part? Doesn't bother me. I don't find it the least incongruous that I'm the only guy who can Save the World. It happens. Thedas, Faerun, no matter where I go, there's always somebody who needs me to murder-hobo my way through their realm. It's what I do. I expect it bothers someone who knows Shadowrun as a place where we just need to survive, and get through another day while balancing the books and dodging the corporations, but me? I've been saving the world for other people since back when it wasn't fashionable. Even if they are snotty elves. Their gold spends the same as everyone else's. I will mention that this is the point at which the narrative becomes a bit... strained, if you're trying to be antagonistic. The dialogue "choices" are very much a "But Thou Must" moment, and yes, at that point it seems like Telestrian should have you shot rather than depending on your unreliable rear end to do anything about saving the world.
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Nov 4, 2017 02:14
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Aren't there a set of dialogue options for this part that are something like thinly-veiled disdain, tempered by the fact that you've absolutely been caught with your pant down? Been a long time since I played DMS.
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Nov 4, 2017 02:17
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1 nuyen = 1 Big Mac, just fyi
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Nov 4, 2017 02:24
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paragon1 posted:1 nuyen = 1 Big Mac, just fyi
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Nov 4, 2017 02:27
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PMush Perfect posted:Which would put 1 nuyen at about $5 in 2017 USD. That's not a bad approximation, yeah. The Big Mac thing is basically a general rule of thumb for game masters to use whenever their players insist on paying for some relatively small thing that should be rightly folded into their Lifestyle costs. Somewhat ironically, actually buying a Big Mac in Shadowrun would cost way more than it does now due to the ingredients. One of the 5th edition books has some sample tables listing generic everyday item costs in nuyen. I can post some if anyone is curious.
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Nov 4, 2017 02:35
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painedforever posted:I expect it bothers someone who knows Shadowrun as a place where we just need to survive, and get through another day while balancing the books and dodging the corporations, but me? I've been saving the world for other people since back when it wasn't fashionable.
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Nov 4, 2017 02:37
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Life comes at you fast.
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Nov 4, 2017 02:39
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If it helps, 'running is a very boom-and-bust career. You can go from living the highlife to squatting in the slums in one bad run, then right back again when you stumble into the right place at the right time.
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Nov 4, 2017 02:50
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It's also worth pointing out that table top games are flexible by design. If the GM wants to run a setting were the PC's are squatters just looking to food/booze money, their fixer is a local cab driver, and an Ares Predator is absurdly overpowered for the campaign, that's fine. If they want a setting where the players have dragons in their Rolodex, the mage is a level 10 initiate, and the street sam's delta grade fly-by-wire system gives him an initiative score in the high 40's, that's fine too. I think most groups will mostly focus on a mid power kind of setting, with the occasional big fish or established character showing up now and then to make things interesting.
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Nov 4, 2017 03:04
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paragon1 posted:That's not a bad approximation, yeah. The Big Mac thing is basically a general rule of thumb for game masters to use whenever their players insist on paying for some relatively small thing that should be rightly folded into their Lifestyle costs. Somewhat ironically, actually buying a Big Mac in Shadowrun would cost way more than it does now due to the ingredients. Wouldn't it be called a "Stuffer Stack," or something like that?
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Nov 4, 2017 04:22
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Stuffer Shack is kind of more like 7-11 with more stuff. McDonalds is McHughs.
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Nov 4, 2017 04:36
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I don't think you're even allowed to run a Stuffer Shack anywhere in the same zip code as real meat.
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Nov 4, 2017 04:55
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Keeshhound posted:Wouldn't it be called a "Stuffer Stack," or something like that? For the Magic Cyber Future of the 80's social equivalent of a modern Big Mac, yes. That equivalent being some grilled mycoprotein with some seaweed slapped between two soy buns. Real Meat and Real Bread are going to be way more expensive, there is a real qualitative difference between what foods we enjoy now and what people in Shadowrun put up with.
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Nov 4, 2017 06:43
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