| From: | Twist0059@***.com Twist0059@***.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Jak Koke E-Mail (Concerning the SR Novels) |
| Date: | Fri, 16 Jul 1999 12:32:38 EDT |
jarmokaronen@***.fi writes:
> Leave the sourcebooks to the players. That doesn't
> mean
> >you can't use the SR personalities, just don't take our plot hooks.
>
> Why?
Because they are for the RPG, not for the novels. The writers should be
coming up with their own stuff.
>Don't make
>your character a superhero.
>What's wrong with superheroes? :)
This isn't Marvel Superheroes. Having them in Shadowrun is mocking the
realism of the game.
>Make them feel pain, and make them lose almost
>as often as they win. Make the victories small, and make them hard
fought.
>I think that most of the time Dragonheart Series followed these rules.
>Ryan Mercury had weaknesses and his victories were hard fought. Of
>course he managed to do some things easily. If he hadn't, it would have
>been unrealistic. After all, he was a high-level character with curtain
>skills...
Ryan Mercury was a bland, cardboard character. Even in his sex scenes he was
uninteresting precisely because he had virtually no emotion. He was as
passionate as a technical manual.
>Don't make the ultra-secret Aztechnology dela clinic guarded by three
guys
>with baseball bats (pretty much, compared to what was stored there).
>The extraction from the delta clinic just wasn't the biggest things in
>the Series. Why make the opposition damn hard if there were bigger
>battles and plot twists in store?
Because it was silly that such a high powered facility was so pathetically
guarded. Try explaining to the Shadowrun world that the delta clinic was
weakly defended because there were bigger plots later on in the novel series
and so you can just blow off the beginning. Wave goodbye to realism in the
trilogy and set the tone for a disappointing story to follow.
>Try and
>eliminate the gratuitous sex scenes, or just suggest them (see 2XS and
>Night's Pawn).
>I actually enjoyed them... I think that they were written with quite a
>good taste.
There was no point for them. The sex scenes are a poor replacement for
characterizing the love between two characters (Daviar and Ryan). They had
no sparks between them in dialogue or narration, but they slept together more
than once so there must be love there. Uh-huh.
>I really can't see your problem. How come novels foil gamemaster plots?
>You can simply ignore what's written in a novel. If it is a problem,
>it's because you made it.
Novels that use sourcebook plot hooks intended for the GMs foil the
adventures those GMs have made. The whole point of the sourcebooks is to
provide material for our games, not to replace a writer's creativity. The
novelists should be coming up with their own ideas. If you avoid the novels,
you diverge into alternate campaign universes which players don't like
because they feel it's false and they are out of the FASA SR loop and GMs
don't like because they are hamstringed into rewriting history continually
not to mention the dreaded "That's not the way it happened" coming from
players.
>To continue with this, I don't see novels telling the same plots as
>sourcebooks. How can you say that?
So far I've had adventures concerning the Deep Resonance, Dunk's
assassination, the Crash of '29, the Ordo Maximus and Martin DeVries, and the
Corp War ruined because of the SR novels telling the stories the sourcebooks
set up. That's how I can say that.
>Sourcebook suggest many things, and novels pick one. That doesn't mean
>_you_ have to pick the same one as the novel. It's there for the folks
>who like to see the plotline resolved for them or shown how it can be
>resolved.
Shadowrun is still a game, a game given to us in the sourcebooks for GMs to
develop. Having the novel writers plug in the answers to those questions
isn't their job. They are supposed to be telling interesting stories set in
the Shadowrun universe, not stories using the sourcebooks as crutches for
creativity. Something like Headhunters is a great example of a novel which
uses sourcebook threads without taking any of the GM's plot hooks in those
books. I may not have liked all of Odom's characters, but at least he
understands characterization, realistic action, and how to keep the game and
the novels seperate.
>I don't actually see Shadowrun novels as real literature or
>novels; they are different kind of sourcebooks and usually far more
>entertaining than the actual sourcebooks...
The Shadowrun novels are real literature. At least eight of them are some of
the best novels I have ever read. It's bad stories and weak writing which
make them stale sourcebook rip-offs and spoil the fun of the GM. All that in
the past and unable to be changed, I look towards the SR novel future (bleak
as ROC is making it) and even Jak Koke's new novel with optimism that
feedback from disappointed players will point the way around these problems
and make the novels fun for everyone.
I'm not saying you have to dislike the DHS, but this is where those of us who
didn't like it are coming from.
-Twist
Lifetime Member of the I WANT MY JOSIE CRUISE NOVEL Crusade
